Dub Housing

I don't hate it. I don't *like* it, but I don't feel the hate that I imagine this is going to get in the reviews. This is one of those times that I really wish I had the book, so I could understand exactly why this was chosen, but it just has the sound of some kind of trailblazer/precursor to a genre/band/movement. It's a 2.5, but I'll give it 3 because I'm feeling generous.

It's not that bad if you can get past the ridiculous vocals; which, admittedly, is difficult to do. I feel like this album is daring me to like it in spite of all the dissonance.

Oh no. Ohhhh no.

This is one of THE most hated albums on the site. I understood why, at least I thought I did at first. It's noisy, it's hectic, it's unpredictable and downright scary sometimes, and it's got a whiny singer. All your least favorite things for most of you, right? That's part of what drew me to it. I love noisy, I love weird singers, I love unpredictability and being so taken aback and astonished by whatever it is I just heard. I was so ready to sing my praises for the album before I even heard it, because it seemed so in line with everything else I usually like!

And then I heard it, and you were all proven right. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get into this. Many of my friends are early Pere Ubu fans, so it might need a bit of time on my end to appreciate. But I just...this singer, man. He's a bit too whiny, even for me. If I felt the songs were stronger, I'd probably appreciate him more. But I don't even think the songs behind him are that great. Caligari's Mirror I found to be just too bizarre for my tastes. The songs aren't even boring, I can say that. Nothing about the album is boring. But to me, there's not enough to latch onto. Not enough legitimately pleasing musicality. The amount of times I felt like I was listening to a ringtone, or listening to my dryer cycle being done...

Maybe in a few years I'll grow to love this, just like I did with some other favorites of mine. But now is not the time. As of right now, I don't want to come back to a single song on this again. I have to give it a 1 just so I can laugh at my ratings in five years time when I end up loving it.

Somehow a combo of Baz Lerman and Iggy Pop

I enjoy this more than their debut, it sounds equally as angry and raw but it seems to have a bit more of direction.

7/10 [KEEP]

Changed my taste in music entirely - I'm always happy to relisten to it. Weird punky synth things ♥️

This is what I like about this project, never heard of this, it's weird, I like it.

I remember reading somewhere that the Violent Femmes couldn't get any gigs in the midwest in the late 70's because the scene was just full of pretensions post punks. and I didn't realize this was the garbage they were talking about. absolute garbage pretending to be "smart"

I know I started listening to Pere Ubu within the past year. They were a long-running avant-garde rock band that went through several lineup changes, with singer-songwriter David Thomas as the lone constant member until his death earlier this year. They proved to be highly influential to several underground and alternative rock artists, to the point where their first two records appear in the 1001 Albums series. Dub Housing is the latter of those two, written and recorded with the intent of having a cohesive set of tracks, as opposed to standalone songs. Did it work?

Well, I'm not sure about the cohesiveness, considering this album is weird to begin with. There were a lot of strange compositional choices and elements added to this record - the Morse code in the background of "On the Surface", the howling saxophone on the title track, the demented sea shanty on "Caligari's Mirror", the dilapidated noise instrumentals "Thriller!" and "Big Daddy-O", and especially David's caterwauling vocals throughout. What Pere Ubu managed to do could be described as intentionally obtuse, without fully sacrificing the fundamental understandings of song structure or only half-committing to ideas. Most of the songs here stand well enough on their own that not only do I respect the experimental musicianship, but I came around to liking this album. Not every track worked for me, notably "Thriller!" with the slowed-down warbly slide guitar and liberal use of filtered audio recordings. But more often than not, I reveled in the madness these lads thrived in, probably a lot closer to my enjoyment of krautrock acts like NEU! and Can.

Honestly, I'm amazed at how much I enjoyed Dub Housing in all its controlled insanity. This has me looking forward to the other Pere Ubu record.

Absolutely unmemorable, very much a "listen to once, forget forever" album. Now I'm afraid to relisten to it in case the dreaded Spotify algorithm thinks I actually liked it... Not as bad as their other album on here, but that's not praise in any way.

I previously enjoyed the Modern Dance when it was generated, but I don’t remember it being as weird as this. I remember the Modern Dance was a solid noisy post-punk record, but Dub Housing sounds like a surreal mix of the Talking Heads and Devo, which is kind of perfect for me right now as I’ve been exploring Devo after watching the Devo documentary and have been obsessed with David Byrne for awhile now.

I really want to know what was in the water in Ohio in the early 70s to produce these wildly avant-garde bands. Well, probably a lot of rubber by-products and too much lead actually.

rip david thomas

At first I thought the music was ok, the singing was just bad. Then I got a couple tracks in and it got worse. And worse.

Prog punk. One of the foundational post-punk albums, this is aggressively weird. Funky bass but robotic without any soul/blues - the rhythm is like it’s all made out of corners and could come clattering down anytime, just pure momentum holding it together. Strange layers of keyboard, synth, and effects stacked up on top of each other. The vocals are sort of sung, more like yelped and shouted and wailed. The guitars are there to mess up the rhythm even more and bring more noise to the high end. Follows in the eccentric auteur Beefheart tradition of avant garde chaos, but angrier, less psychedelic and more ironic. Pioneering, influential, but not one to listen to for fun.

Never heard of this band before. I like the fonts on this album cover. Vocals are like Talking Heads but dialed up to 15 (and therefore pretty darn annoying). I cycled through {"I don't like this", "Wait, maybe it's OK", "I like this bit"} many times. The Sweet Home Alabama/Drunken Sailor song really took me out. '(Pa) Ubu Dance Party' was a high point, at least for a moment. What can I say? This sure is eclectic. But if I don't know if I like it, then I probably don't like it.

Wow this is awful but I kind of like it. 2.2 average.

I love post-punk and appreciate the influence this album/band had but as a listening experience it's a bit grating.

Talking Heads if they were bad.

35 minutos y 10 canciones. Sigo sorprendiéndome con lo corto y directos que eran antes los discos. Empieza bien con Navvy a pesar de la voz como de gato maullando. El sonido post-punk, avant-garde no me disgusta y tenía algo de miedo ya que este es uno de los discos peor puntuados dentro de los 1001 de esta lista. No es malo y pero tampoco se merece más de un 2. Si te gustan Pavement, Talking Heads o Manos de Topo lo mismo te parecen interesantes.