Hüsker Dü Albums Ranked
Hüsker Dü was an American punk rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1979. The band’s continual members were guitarist/vocalist Bob Mould, bassist/vocalist Greg Norton, and drummer/vocalist Grant Hart. They first gained notability as a hardcore punk band, and later crossed over into alternative rock. Mould and Hart were the band’s principal songwriters, with Hart’s higher-pitched vocals and Mould’s baritone taking the lead in alternating songs. After their respective bands broke up in the mid-1990s, Mould and Hart continued doing solo work, the latter until his death in 2017. Norton was initially less active musically after Hüsker Dü and focused on being a restaurateur instead. He returned to the recording industry in 2006. Here are all of Hüsker Dü albums ranked.
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10. Savage Young Dü
“This beautifully packaged 3 disc set of the bands formative years on numero group sets a high standard in terms of sound quality and archival releases. Disc 1 is dominated by the bands first demos and rehearsals where they sound rather like the Ramones or the Buzzcocks. Then the live stuff where they hit dive bars and student shows with a passionate energy. Theres a phase where post-punk sounds start to cut into their playing on disc2 before we get a revamped version of the live ‘land speed record’ where the band grew into their trademark 100mph amphetamine punk sound.”
9. Land Speed Record
“This is how underground hardcore shows sounded back then. It is great, it is ferocious, it is well organized under the layer of distortion. Great riffs sparkle up and are washed away by the sound of a derailing freight train. Weird free jazz atonal influences with the hammering of the rhythm and the short sharp solos between the yells.”
8. Everything Falls Apart
“Opening track ‘From the Gut’, and most of the second side (particularly the title track and album closer ‘Gravity’) are starting to show the blend of hardcore, punk and pop that made Hüsker Dü such an important and innovative band throughout the 80’s and such a huge influence on what came in the 90’s.”
7. The Living End
“Perhaps the best live album I’ve ever heard, up there with Kick Out the Jams and NoMeansNo’s Live and Cuddly. Emotional melodic hardcore that so many bands have tried to imitate, in vain. “Ice Cold Ice”, “Hardly Getting Over It” and “She Floated Away” are standouts on an album full of transcendant masterpieces.”
6. Metal Circus
‘Metal Circus’, while still being relatively inaccessible to fans of their later stuff, is still pure pop – it’s merely wrapped in a hardcore shell. Throughout the 80’s they would continue to get a little slower with each release, so here they have most of the energy of their hardcore days, but have slowed down enough to fit some melody and structure into the songs.”
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5. Candy Apple Grey
“Candy Apple Grey gets tossed aside like some step child in the cannon of Husker Du, and while I can understand that the production is horrendous and that it doesn’t hold a candle to classics like New Day Rising or Zen Arcade this is truly a fantastic album and a greatly original one for a band that thrived on originality. You might be asking yourself how a bands most commercially viable sounding and feeling album could be their most original, well simple; it is their only album that doesn’t aim to be non-commercial making it unlike the rest of their canon and twice as personal as it essentially is a concept album about the post-break up.”
4. Flip Your Wig
“This is a nice enough pop/punk album that does little to offend (apart from ‘The Baby Song’ that is), but the heavy post punk atmospherics in ‘Find Me’ (and the guitar solo) are my fav. Hüsker moments of all. Hands down. Despite 25 years of overlistening it’s still one song I can put on anytime, any mood. There’s an awful lot of good songs from this era of Hüsker Dü’s and ‘Flip Your Wig’ is as good as any place to start if you’re at all curious about this great pioneering American indie band.”
3. Warehouse: Songs And Stories
“I think this album is worthy of comparison to the white album in its style, although it’s perhaps not up to the level of the white album, or abbey road which if I recall correctly was made/written before the white album and released afterwards, as well as in the fierceness of its tone and totality of emotional release. Gotta say, I just love this album, and I love the idea of a band being so honest before they ended it, it’s a session of catharsis on record, it’s like hearing psychotherapy in music form.”
2. New Day Rising
“This is the perfect summer album, whenever I am in a downer I blast this and it gives me some sense of optimism and something to be cheerful about because it is rock music at its most beautiful. Husker Du in their underrated run in the 80’s perfected a synthesis between crunchy punk riffs and melodic introspection and changed guitar rock in the process building on the Ramones template but even better imo.”
1. Zen Arcade
“Zen Arcade is a classic, landmark album whose reputation just grows and grows with each passing year. Its cult following just keeps growing. Its legacy is set in stone, this is just one of those truly great albums. It’s of course a concept album. It tells the story of a young man who runs away to escape a miserable, abusive, broken home and his experiences with.”