Husker Du - The Promised Land of Hardcore

To My Sister

At the start of the Eighties, punk had by then exhausted its original subversive charge, progressively losing its impact. This phase of stagnation was overcome essentially through a reworking of some of the genre's characteristic elements.

First of all, the songs became more aggressive, more abrasive, and began to be marked by a speed of execution that was at times overwhelming. Moreover, on a purely ideological level, the bleak resignation that had marked the end of the Seventies was cast aside, giving way to an evolutionary process that, starting from subjective introspection, sought to arrive at a "therapeutic vision" of reality, all along a path we might call cathartic. It was precisely at that moment that, to refer to punk, people began talking about "hard-core", a term borrowed from film language.

Hardcore became a mass phenomenon above all in the United States, thanks to the rise of numerous bands, some of which were destined to leave an indelible mark on the history of rock. Among these, without doubt, we must count Husker Du (Norwegian for "Do you remember?").

Coming from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they had formed in 1978, Bob Mould (guitar), Grant Hart (drums) and Greg Norton (bass) managed to turn hardcore into something magical, no longer aimed solely at social themes but finally able to peer into the depths of the human soul and draw from it vital energy and Promethean pride. (In an interview dating back to 1984, Hart stated: "When people talk about 'hardcore', they always tend to stress the harder, more violent side ('hard'). I don't understand how all these bands manage to be so cold... We, instead, try to focus above all on the emotional side ('core')".

At the start, Husker Du played covers of the Ramones, the band's first great influence, alongside Buzzcocks, Beatles, Byrds and Hendrix.

Their recording debut came in January 1981 with the single "Statues" (which echoes the P.I.L. of "Metal Box"), followed by their first EP, recorded live: Land Speed Record, a literally devastating work, played at a staggering speed and with a violence worthy of Black Flag. With this record, the trio earned themselves the title of "fastest band on the planet".

Beneath the chaotic, frenzied surface, however, a few fragments of melody already hinted at the band's future originality.

In 1982 came their first full-length, Everything Falls Apart. This first attempt at the long-playing format shows even clearer signs of their true intentions: to write catchy pop melodies and then pour them into a typically hardcore structure. Just listen, for instance, to tracks like the title track itself, "Target" or "Gravity". In truth, though, at this stage the band was still honing its songwriting, and the tracks are often not perfectly balanced or well structured. More than the melodic side, in fact, it's often the noisy side that prevails, in line with the stylistic conventions of more orthodox hardcore.

Also worth remembering is the excellent cover of "Sunshine Superman" by Donovan.

Their more orthodox phase, so to speak, reaches full maturity with the EP Metal Circus, released on SST in 1983 and considered by some to be their first masterpiece. Indeed, it's precisely across these eighteen minutes that Husker Du show they have no intention of staying anchored to the laws of hardcore, but rather want to probe its boundaries and, if possible, push beyond them.

The standout tracks are certainly the wonderful "Diane" (an everyday story of rape and murder, marked by the dark pulse of the bass and wrapped in a touching guitar delirium), "Real World" (a pounding hardcore track with a few traces of Stiff Little Fingers) and "Out On A Limb" (dissonant and metallic, with a few hints of Killing Joke).

It's also worth stressing that it's precisely starting with Metal Circus that the band's two souls begin to take shape: Hart's lively, buoyant side (evident in the splendid "It's Not Funny Anymore"), and, by contrast, Mould's dark, introspective one. As for the latter, it's also worth noting the maturity he had by then reached in terms of guitar style: the way he attacks his "Ibanez Flying V" is certainly not orthodox, but it was precisely this that would go on to influence an entire generation of guitarists. His characteristic atmospheric "wall of sound" is one of the band's defining traits, perfectly balanced by Hart's frenzied yet precise drumming, and by Norton's never-overstated basslines.

By the end of 1983, all the basic elements of the Husker Du sound had reached a flawless equilibrium. Mould and Hart, the band's two songwriters, decided to split the songwriting duties democratically. Their deeply incompatible personalities would do the rest, lending future records an astonishing intensity born from two completely different artistic spaces that were, in the end, mirror images of each other. In the background stood Norton, who also deserves credit for actively contributing to some tracks from the early period.

Out of this situation emerged a band ready to throw down the gauntlet to the American underground.

Thus began the recording sessions for what remains, to this day, the absolute pinnacle of punk-hardcore, and one of the greatest rock albums of all time: the double album Zen Arcade (1984), the first American independent album to sell more than 100,000 copies. 23 tracks recorded live for 85 hours of mixing: that's what Husker Du themselves state in the liner notes. And we have no trouble believing them. Every song, in fact, retains the flavor of unrepeatable moments, the rage and tenderness of an epoch-defining, timeless revelation. Within the most heterodox strand of hardcore, only the Minutemen would manage a similarly audacious feat, with the other extraordinary double album, "Double Nickels On The Dime", also released in '84, also on SST.

Zen Arcade is a concept album built along a Conradian line of shadow, the one separating adolescence from maturity. A kind of Quadrophenia for the punk era, but without its bombast and pomposity. Truth be told, though, as the record spins on, the story gradually unravels, running aground in the impossibility of expressing itself fully, turning the album into a monument to imperfection, as if the music's tragic exuberance overwhelms the sense of the lyrics. Setting aside the "narrative-logical" success of the concept, then, the Huskers focus on the emotional and physical impact of an apocalyptic maelstrom, woven from melody, noise and brains.

The record opens with Hart's freewheeling pounding and Norton's hammering bass, both clearing the way for Mould's searing guitar, capable of an almost "spiritual" abrasiveness: "Something I Learned Today", and the following "Broken Home, Broken Heart" (another extraordinary hardcore progression from Mould), form a perfect pairing of fury and catchiness. Next comes the gorgeous folk ballad "Never Talking To You Again", the album's first real signal of originality, alongside the experimentation of "Dreams Recourring" (with tapes run backwards) and the exuberant, lysergic raga of "Hare Krsna".

On the more straightforwardly hardcore side sit "Indecision Time", "Beyond The Threshold", "Pride" (the latter featuring chairs smashed in the studio and an almost "ecstatic" violence, as if symbolizing an extreme attempt to establish an impossible dialogue with the world and its otherness), "I'll Never Forget You" (a merciless piece of "ultra-core" from Mould's pen — and, in the author's own words, one of his finest moments), and "The Biggest Lie" (with staggering abrasiveness and phenomenal drumming). Then comes "What's Going On" (propelled by bass notes that call to mind Sonic Youth, launched into a clattering boogie saturated with guitar) and "Masochism World" (torrential, epic hardcore).

The second half of the album is marked by a less impulsive rage and a greater "pop" sensibility. Rather than losing their aggression and fury, the songs seem to channel it to a less superficial level, giving rise to structures that appear perfectly melodic on the surface but are in fact eroded from beneath by primal urges that are never truly tamed. "Standing In The Sea" lives on a subtle, oppressive depression, immersed in an almost hallucinatory, dreamlike scenario; "Somewhere" is a feverish cry of hope; "Pink Turns To Blue" is one of the album's most magical tracks, with Hart's falsetto and a droning, ethereal guitar; "Turn On The News", on the other hand, is an anthem in pure '77 style. On a more impressionistic level are the piano interludes of "One Step At A Time" and "Monday Will Never Be The Same" (perfect for temporarily easing the exalted, restless mood that runs through the whole album), and the psychedelic nightmare of "The Tooth Fairy And The Princess".

The album's two great masterpieces are "Newest Industry" (an extraordinary jingle-jangle folk-rock number that gradually becomes charged with rage and passion) and "Whatever" (cathartic, dreamlike magic built on abrasive, cosmic guitar, a sly bassline and an unforgettable voice). Both songs are credited to Bob Mould, truly one of the great songwriters of his generation. The album closes with the experimental psychedelia of the very long (14 minutes…) "Recourring Dreams", a delirium of guitar glissandi, breathless runs, distortions and gushing sounds chasing and overtaking one another, in a delirious, hallucinated atmosphere.

To this day, the influence of this epoch-making album is without doubt incalculable. It would be almost impossible, in fact, to think of American rock (and beyond) over the last twenty years without duly accounting for Zen Arcade.

Mould and Hart, with their opposing personalities, create a feverish example of experimental hardcore, capable of both the darkest extremes of ultra-core and the most dreamy, engaging melodies of the finest pop tradition. In between lies a no man's land, a place where the two extremes dissolve into one another, in a tumult of rage, poetry, delirium and purifying violence. Zen Arcade is all of this: an incredible play of opposing mirrors, of the soul's reverberations, of devastating sonic (im)perfections.

At the end of 1984, the band released the acclaimed single "Eight Miles High", a cover of a Byrds song. The following year came New Day Rising, an album that is, at once, more relentless and more melodic than Zen Arcade. The songs bear the stamp of the band's by-now classic sound, with bass dictating the melodic line and Mould's droning guitar "wall of sound" adding texture to everything. Mould himself is responsible for the distorted tribalism of "New Day Rising" (aggressive and oppressive), the dissonances of "How To Skin A Cat" (with atonal guitar), the whirling "Plans I Make" (with its guitar lacerations), the martial march of "Celebrated Summer" and the great rock'n'roll of "I Apologize". Hart, meanwhile, delivers the sticky chorus of "The Girl Who Live On Heaven Hill", the melody of "Books About Ufo's", and the solemn circularity of "Terms Of Psychic Warfare".

At the time, some accused the band of having become a bit too commercial. Bassist Greg Norton responded to the criticism in an interview that same year: "We've simply matured as songwriters, and we play our songs better now…"

Riding an exceptional and equally fertile burst of inspiration, also in '85, Husker Du recorded Flip Your Wig, marking the transition to so-called "pop-core". The pounding hardcore progressions were gradually disappearing — their last gasps can be heard in "Every Everything", "Divide And Conquer" (feverish and tremendous, branded by a repeated guitar riff and pounding drums) and, finally, "Games" (one of their absolute high points).

A clear sign of the new direction, in which even the tempo eases and the rhythms become less frantic, is the imposing, apocalyptic anthem "Find Me" (with the dizzying spatiality of the six-string), the clearly sixties-inflected pop of "Green Eyes" and "Hate Paper Doll", and the beautiful melodic ascents of "Flexible Flyer" and "Private Plane". Two instrumentals close the album: "The Wit And The Wisdom" and the Orientalish "Don't Know Yet".

Although it doesn't reach the heights of the two previous records, Flip Your Wig is nonetheless a thoroughly admirable work, a link between the melodic hardcore of the SST era and the full-blown pop-core that would come into its own starting with Candy Apple Grey, released in 1986 on Warner Bros., after Husker Du had become the first American independent band to sign with a major label. While not losing their artistic freedom or their knack for writing great songs, Husker Du began to show a few signs of fatigue, most evident on the opening "Crystal", a track that's noticeably out of focus and unfinished. Still, there's no shortage of gems: "Hardly Getting Over It" (a moving acoustic ballad penned by Mould), "Sorry Somehow", "Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely" and "Dead Set On Destruction" (all written by Hart and all marked by an effervescent pop flavor).

The full maturation of this new sound, in which punk and pop coexist in a finely chiseled form, would come the following year, with the other double album of their career, Warehouse: Songs And Stories. The record is a drier, more refined version of Zen Arcade, stripped of its experimentation and its compressed, iconoclastic fury. What remains is what Simon Frith called "the finest collection of white rock music of the decade", an extraordinary kaleidoscope of molten power-pop. The songs chase each other dizzyingly, sketching a wonderful sonic fresco, shaken by an anger and energy that, rather than rippling the surface, stay beneath it, like a distant but inescapable echo.

Either way, by this point Mould and Hart had pushed their respective songwriting in totally opposite directions, foreshadowing the band's breakup, which came in 1988. Mould is the author of the gorgeous "These Important Years", the majestic college-pop of "Standing In The Rain", the singer-songwriter melancholy of "No Reservation" (with an unforgettable bass line), the aching "Ice Cold Ice", and the epic severity of "Friend, You've Got To Fall". Hart, as always, is responsible for the more overtly pop songs, such as "She Floated Away", "Charity, Chastity, Prudence And Hope" (with Mould's classic "ever-present guitar work"), or the breezy "She's A Woman (And Now He Is A Man)".

During the following tour, a live document was recorded, released only in 1994 under the title The Living End, which also includes a cover of "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" by the Ramones. But by now the trio had reached the end of the road. Mould and Hart went on to pursue their musical careers separately, with mixed results. Norton disappeared from the scene entirely.

In seven years of official activity, Husker Du literally refounded punk-hardcore, pushing titanically toward its limits, going beyond them and transcending them in an extraordinary, spectacular "mixed genre", an extremely creative and convincing melodic hardcore. The memory of this band, and of its unrepeatable alchemy, still echoes through the grooves of their eight albums, but it is above all the devastating energy and emotional fullness of Zen Arcade that are destined to remain indissolubly tied to the name Husker Du.

At last, a first proper anthology of the Minnesota trio has also appeared, Savage Young Du (2017), a triple box set devoted to their blazing early days, right up to the great leap of Zen Arcade. It gathers, in their entirety, the early singles and the first two albums, Land Speed Record and Everything Falls Apart, along with a few preparatory sketches for the essential Metal Circus. The unreleased material finally sheds light on the evolution that leads from the earliest home demos (which catch them in love with surf, the Ramones and Buzzcocks) to the first canonically hardcore accelerations, all the way to their earliest experiments with song form, guitar treatment, and shifting rhythmic cadence.

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