I've been spending some quality time with Zen Arcade lately, spurred on by a discussion about whether or not it's actually about Bob coming out (not a discussion, really, but an offhand comment that made me think that perhaps, after 24 years, I had missed the "real" meaning of this record)

I'm still not really convinced, but it's been fun listening to it and trying to decide if I can attempt to play the Greg Norton parts.

RWD wrote:Apparently, the solo in Tilted drove Bob mad and made him quit writing them into songs for a while. Copper Blue was better.

That solo one of my favorite pieces of shredding ever.

Zen Arcade is the best one. Brilliant from beginning to end. The whole fucking thing. Not one bad song. Anywhere!

New Day Rising could have been better. They cut the wrong songs off it...I always hated "59 Times The Pain." Still, "The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill"...um...oh. dear. lord. Grant, I love this song of yours. It makes me feel like my head's gonna explode.

Flip Your Wig is a great pop record.

Everything Falls Apart and More - good stuff. Very, very, very good stuff. I rate it and Metal Circus about even.

Zen Arcade takes it even if only for the hardcore tracks. I usually find myself skipping over the poppier songs just in order to listen to one of the most creative and emotional hardcore records ever. If they had released it as an EP with the tracklist as

Something I Learned Today
Chartered Trips
Indecision Time
Beyond the Threshold
Pride
I'll Never Forget You
The Bigggest Lie
Pink Turns to Blue
Whatever

I think I might even like it better.

Everything Falls Apart, Zen Arcade, Metal Circus. I didn't like anything after Zen Arcade. I saw this band many times from the Land Speed Record days up through the New Day Rising era.

MisterX wrote:Zen Arcade takes it even if only for the hardcore tracks. I usually find myself skipping over the poppier songs just in order to listen to one of the most creative and emotional hardcore records ever. If they had released it as an EP with the tracklist as

Something I Learned Today
Chartered Trips
Indecision Time
Beyond the Threshold
Pride
I'll Never Forget You
The Bigggest Lie
Pink Turns to Blue
Whatever

I think I might even like it better.

I have to agree on this one-- I love ZA's hardcore tracks (although I always considered "Chartered Trips" one of their pop numbers). Their indie rock legacy often overshadows what a great hardcore band they also were, which is unfortunate.

The fact that they could not only out-melody the paisley bands but out-thrash/skronk/noise/angularize most other hardcore bands at the same time is a big reason Hüsker Dü is still my favorite band of all time. They were one of so few bands who were so good being so many things to so many people.

Zen Arcade, in my opinion, is a perfect record. The production problems? Don't care. The filler tracks? Don't care.
If you listen to this album at the right time in your life, you will never forget it. I listened to this album every day for about a year and a half when I was in high school. It was the "intro" band to many other bands that I like today, but almost none of the consequential bands have had an effect on me like this one.
I think my experience listening to Husker Du helped me define what I think about brilliant artists/musicians/etc... in general - rarely are there ever "geniuses", but there are genius works. The HD guys had SOMETHING in them, an inspiration of some sort, that they just had to get out of them. You can hear it sprawled out all over Zen Arcade. After they got it out of them their work declined - this is a larger pattern that can be found in most other great bands, but most obviously in Husker Du, probably because their highs were so spectacular.

AND, I'm not ashamed to write that Husker Du were my high school yearbook quote.

Ace wrote:Zen Arcade, in my opinion, is a perfect record. The production problems? Don't care. The filler tracks? Don't care.

I love the production - to me, it fit the band's sound to a tee: thin, razor-sharp, trebly-as-hell instrument tones (even Hart's drums are trebly), but still incredibly powerful. The only Huskers album where production is a problem for me is New Day Rising. I don't even think there are filler tracks on Zen Arcade. Even the piano diddly-doos fill their function. It all flows together as a whole. It is one of those albums that is perfect on CD, because then you get the entire thing in one rush, no breaks. The effect is absolutely overwhelming. It's a total brain-bomb.

If you listen to this album at the right time in your life, you will never forget it.

While I didn't know Husker Du even existed in high school, I found them in college and they have been an intermittent fixture in my CD's ever since.

What a band. Honestly, though - yearbook quote? (Then again, who am I to talk - I used a James Thurber quote. I am terminally unhip.) Out of curiosity, which song?

SecondEdition wrote:What a band. Honestly, though - yearbook quote? (Then again, who am I to talk - I used a James Thurber quote. I am terminally unhip.) Out of curiosity, which song?

I needed to find a quote that would be accepted, which, considering Husker Du's rather bleak lyrical terrain, was difficult. So I ended up going with part of 'Terms of Psychic Warfare', which was actually one of my LEAST favorite songs from New Day Rising.
Oh well. I was pretty pleased with myself anyways, since most people were quoting Robin Williams or R. Kelly or shit like that.

For me, it comes down to New Day Rising and Zen Arcade.

I digested NDR upon the first listen; ZA forced me to change the record. I could not get into that album. Hell, I'm still trying to get into that album.

Never had that problem with NDR. Though I hardly listen to it. Or Husker Du, for that matter.