Tonight’s selections from Hüsker Dü’s sixth album, 1986’s Candy Apple Grey.
If there is genius in Hüsker Dü, it is in the band’s oxymoronic resolution of tension and repose. When they got together seven years ago, Hüsker Dü’s avowed purpose was to be the loudest, tightest, fastest band in the world. They achieved their goal early on with Land Speed Record. On Candy Apple Grey, they refine the concept of a limited, yet infinite, sonic palette. Bob Mould (guitars, vocals, keyboards, percussion), Greg Norton (bass) and Grant Hart (drums, vocals, keyboards, percussion) create an overpowering, hypnotic effect that straddles the boundary between consonance and dissonance. Repeated listenings not only sustain the initial effect but reveal the subliminal hooks, melodies, choruses and surprisingly conventional structures supporting the towering edifice.
The lyrics deal with life’s intricacies and paradoxes. On Candy Apple Grey, Hüsker Dü pits the ruminative American singer-songwriter tradition against the caustic squalling of high-precision hardcore. Ironically, the so-called ballads are more abrasive than the screechers. Mould’s “Too Far Down” and Hart’s “No Promise Have I Made” show that the human voice is the most expressive instrument of psychic pain. On “Hardly Getting Over It,” Mould contemplates death with a mixture of resignation and rage: “My parents, they just wonder when they both are going to die/And what do I do when they die?”
Yet when the ten segments of Candy Apple Grey begin to reflect and refract off each other, the ultimate result is spiritual liberation. We should be grateful that this band wound up playing in the majors. — Rolling Stone
Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely
Like the backhanded compliment the album’s title implies, this music takes strength from contradiction. The Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” is so effortlessly quoted in “Don’t Want to Know If You Are Lonely,” it’s ingrained in the song’s precision control, a melodic aside to let you know, yes, this is how they intend to play. Rather than def and dumb primeval ooze emerging from the hardcore’s paleolothic mud, Hüsker Dü are pretty self-aware.
Which is why, after Hart’s rousing “Sorry Somehow”—an upwardly mobile pop song even for these prototeen idols, dangling Hammond and all—the entrance of Mould’s solo acoustic guitar in “Too Far Down” is hardly out of context. The song’s unrelieved gloom isn’t lightened by a hint of irony. It’s hard to believe that Mould could lay his emotional life so nakedly on the line: “All I can do is sit and wonder if it’s going to end / Or if I should just go away forever.” The song’s chill starkness is matched by the melancholia of “Hardly Getting Over It,” another ballad of fear and loss, fear and loss, and reigned despair, all resting on a nailed bed of strummed guitars and metalflake piano.
“No Promise I Have Made,” Hart guarantees, speaking for the band, facing up to the inevitable, “you facing me betrayed.” Hüsker Dü fans know the only expectations belong to Hüsker Dü. “All This I’ve Done For You,” adds Mould simply. “Sometimes I don’t know why you want to try and help me.” Few performers have ever depicted the call-and-resonse between artist and audience in such unadorned couplets of existential need. Opposites attract. — SPIN
Dead Set On Destruction
Candy Apple Grey is without a doubt the most radio-friendly album to derive from Hüsker Dü. That sentence alone might just be enough to make some of the hardcore fans' stomachs turn. But have no fear, it's only a temporarily stomach-turn. Once you've put the record on the gramophone - you'll find that: "Hey! This ain't altogether that bad!". No, it isn't. It's actually quite impressing, I must say. It begins with you getting pushed into a wail. Then punched in the face by a tremendous force, that is Bob Mould's distinct way of playing the guitar.
And then it explodes. For a trio, they sound huge. And the sound is broader than ever. It's all still there. the basics I mean; there's still the thumpy drums being played slightly behind the beat, the malicious basslines that cooperate perfectly with the trashing guitar-riffs. But there's something more to it, this time. It's broader and more melodic, than ever. It's sort of a total change of genre. It's a transition from hardcore/emocore to what is later to be known as alternative rock. It sounds as frenetic, as passionate and as upset as ever... but it's also introverted, cold, and at times toned-down. There's even an acoustic guitar in the picture, as well as a piano. The songs "No Promise Have I Made", "Hardly Getting Over It" and "Too Far Down" are particularly... blue. And cold. And just downright sad. The acoustic guitar and piano makes a welcome change of sound, from the upbeat tracks on the record, who - by the way, are catchier and more passionate than ever. There is some very strong songwriting present on this record. Bob Mould and Grant Hart both outdo themselves. — Sputnik Music
Hardly Getting Over It
According to Mould, the “Candy Apple Grey” album may surprise Husker Du fans. “It’s a lot more down beat than some of our recent stuff,” he said. “Two or three songs are really stripped back. They’re more vocal-oriented songs, more acoustic, with some keyboards.”
Mould said the song list has been changing every night of the current tour, but that generally the band has been playing a lot of new material (titles include: “Don’t Want to Know If You Are Lonely,” “Hardly Getting Over It,” “Sorry Somehow” and “Eiffel Tower High”).
Mould also said that Warners has given the band the option to do at least one video per album. “Warners is letting us do it ourselves. It’s too early to tell right now which song it will be. We’re going to wait and see which songs do what.” To date, the band has made only one of its own, for “Makes No Sense at All,” which was aired on MTV for roughly six weeks.
Despite the Warners deal, Mould said Husker Du will continue to remain based in the Minneapolis area, which the 25-year-old Mould has called home since the late ’70s, when he left Malone, N.Y., a farming town near Lake Placid, for Macalester College. It was while he was working on a degree in urban studies that Mould met drummer Grant Hart, who was working in a record store near campus. When Mould and Hart decided to form a band in 1979, Greg Norton, a high school friend of Hart’s, was asked to join.
Has the Warners deal brought the Huskers fame in their own backyard? “Our exposure and reputation runs hot and cold,” Mould said. “One day we’re being played on a 50,000-watt commercial station, the next day nothing.” — The Morning Call (1986)
Sorry Somehow
In re-tellings of the story of Hüsker Dü, not much time is given to Candy Apple Grey. In his recounting of American underground rock of the 1980s, Michael Azerrad barely mentions the album; it appears mostly as a bit of trivia about how Warner Brothers didn’t want to release it when the band also had Flip Your Wig ready to go. In his memoir, Bob Mould is dismissive of the album; he calls it incomplete and has kind words for only three of the album’s 10 songs. This is a weird situation, given that it was the venerable underground band’s first foray into the mainstream music industry. Most albums like this provoke a reaction, whether that be proclamations of assured maturity from critics or condemnations from longtime fans over selling out. Instead, Candy Apple Grey’s legacy seems to be that it doesn’t have much of a legacy.
Upon listening to the album, it becomes clear that Candy Apple Grey isn’t the huge sonic leap forward that one would expect from a major label debut. With a handful of exceptions, the album sounds pretty much as one would expect. The guitars are loud, the tempos are mostly fast, and Mould and Grant Hart take turns in front of the microphone. The only major difference is in the strength of the guitars and drums, which don’t sound nearly as thin with Mould and Hart behind the boards than they did when SST Records’ in-house producer Spot was calling the shots. What’s clearer is that, in terms of the songs on Grey that sound most like vintage Hüsker Dü, Hart’s work is far more engaging than Mould’s. The likes of “Eiffel Tower High” and “I Don’t Know for Sure” come across as rote exercises, the kind of songs that Mould could have probably written in his sleep at this point. Hart, on the other hand, produced two of the band’s best songs in the anthemic, driving “Don’t Want to Know If You Are Lonely” and “Sorry Somehow,” one of the band’s more under-appreciated symbols. The divide between Hart and Mould has never been starker than it is on this album: one seems to enjoy being in Hüsker Dü, and the other seems ready to move on. — Spectrum Culture
All This I've Done For You
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