Warehouse: Songs and Stories

It’s wild that this is their sixth album. All the songs are so good. However, there’s something about thee vocals that just doesn’t click for me. It’s frustrating because objectively this is a terrific album. But it’s just not something I’m going to listen to, it’s definitely the vocals, I can’t put my finger on why, but I don’t like them.

It's interesting. Don't know if I'm burning out slightly from this project, or what, but early on in the project, it feels like I was more likely to give albums/artists I've never heard before higher ratings (It's been over 30 days since I've given a 2 as well. So it's not like I've been getting stuff I don't like, just not been getting almost any new discovers that I would particularly like to go back to). Things really seem to be settling into a place where everything is a 3.

At this point, it's basically just artists/albums I've heard before that are getting higher than 3s, whereas artists where I'm discovering them for the first time are struggling to get higher.

That said, I'm still enjoying this album quite a bit despite the 3 I'm planning on giving it. I do prefer the Sugar album (Copper Blue) from Bob Mould over this one due to it having more melody and catchyness, and I prefer the production on that one. This one is still really good, but slightly more on the punk/abrasive side. It being over an hour long is a sticking point too.

I'll give them She Floated Away though. Wasn't expecting a straight up alt rock sea-shanty to pop up on this album. Nice change of pace for the album.

I mean it’s as catchy as any other forgettable US “Punk” , but overall a little meh

The name Hűsker Dű implies an industrial band or metal with the proliferation of umlauts… buts its just Green Day lite

Not too bad, but it is very long, and a bit samey.

To be perfectly honest, I find the album — and the band's entire sound — awful. 'Four chords that made a million' (if there are even four). There's not much more boring than American indie rock with a punk attitude — maybe British indie rock is a little worse, but only maybe. I thought Hüsker Dü were awful back then, even when all my friends were raving about them. And if it didn’t appeal to the ‘rebel’ in me back then, it certainly won’t now. Of course, I know that behind the band’s raucous sound there are two clever minds, and that the band had a lot to say through their lyrics, but for me, unfortunately, it's not much more than 70 minutes wasted. I just can't get the message.

Some of the songs (mostly Mould-penned) have cool elements, anticipating both 90s indie rock and more commercial “alternative” styles, but a lot of the tracks are so sonically indistinct that they barely register to my ears as music.

The Beatles were arguing amongst themselves while the band was falling apart and produced the White Album, Let it Be and Abbey Road.

These guys were doing the same thing and produced a double album of 20 songs that all sound more or less the same.

The songs all chug along at the one tempo so that after a while they blur into each other. When something different, like "She Floated away, which is a different time signature, though still at the same tempo, comes along it's a jolt.

The lyrics might be different and might well be poetic gems, but they're often mixed so far down that they're often indecipherable.

This leaves "variety" to be determined by whether the distortion pedal is set at 6, 7, or 8.

And didn't we invent microphones, so that we didn't need to use two Campbell's Soup Cans joined by string?

The recording quality is pretty poor. I get that it was recorded in a warehouse, but was placing the recording equipment at one end and the band at the other, behind the pallets of building supplies, really the optimum plan?

I went back and listened to Zen Arcade and that really should be on this list. This, however, is nowhere near as good

And don't tell me that "She's a woman and now he's a man" doesn't lift the melody of Every Time That You Walk In The Room by The Searchers.

I mostly know these guys because of them being "REM-adjacent" without ever realllllllly listening to them.

And yes, as a fully paid-up member of the "power-pop appreciation society" there's enough here to remind me that I have to investigate them more. The reviews suggest that maybe this isn't the album to do that with, and I can equally see why - a little too long, a little too unstructured and the feeling that, with just a little more polish, they could have come up with 11 bangers.

2 Husker Didn't.
Nothing really stood out, I can appreciate they were early but it was some generic '90s noise overall.

I like a handful of these songs, particularly Friend, You've Got to Fall and She Floated Away. However, at 1hr 9 minutes it's just too much of the same unappealing, rough sound that most of these tracks have. More grating than anything else.

This is an 80s college rock album that's 68 minutes long. The first thing I noticed when I put it on was the awful, tinny production. It's a shame, because the album is loaded with hooky, high-energy songs that are excellent. It's an excellent album, especially considering that it was a last gasp for air from a band that was rapidly imploding due to inner turmoil and drug abuse. The underlying songs are better than contemporary REM(a band that Husker Du are often likened to), but the production is far worse. I also don't think it should be anywhere near as long as it is(30-40 minutes would suffice). However, there's still an excellent album in here somewhere, it just needs a good remix with some cutting.

Hüsker Dü deserve to be included in the list but they really could’ve picked any of their other albums and done better. This albums is fine but not an essential listen. Minnesotans deserve better than this

I saw Hüsker Dü do a show in a gymnasium in ( i want to say) 1981 or 1982. It was amazing. So much different than any of the other punk stuff coming through town around that time, like TSOL or Black Flag. More musical in general, more professional. Punk in tempo and volume, but the songs flowed differently. They weren't merely an angry one-two punch to whatever random thing or person was close by. There was a craftsmanship more like the big time bands we pretended not to like - Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin. And they had a hippie aesthetic which was interesting. Grant Hart played the drums barefoot, which I was truly astonished at. I've never seen that before or since.

Warehouse: Songs and Stories is unfortunately their last album. So much bitterness, I don't know who lied to Bob Mould or why, but now they're done. A lot of spiteful songs on here. Still true to their pop-punk origins though, mixed with a punk-psychedelic wash which made them one of my all-time favorite bands. "Too Much Spice," "Charity, Chastity, Prudence and Hope," "Could You be the One?," "Friend, You've Got to Fall" are all super-catchy bangers. Every song on this album is appealing. And the contrast between Mould and Hart is played up well here, even if they would do better to combine forces. Maybe that would be too many cooks, though. A band who imploded too soon. RIP Grant Hart, sorry things didn't go your way.

It's not the best Hüsker Dü album, but it's probably a good one for this list, it's their biggest seller (I think) and an attempt at mainstream acceptance, meaning they literally sold out. A gutsy move for a punk band. Hüsker Dü's influence is huge, of course, and I give this an additional star just for getting something by them on this list.

I’d never heard of Hüsker Dü before and went into Warehouse: Songs and Stories with no real expectations.

My first reaction was simply: this album is far too long. At 20 tracks and over 70 minutes, it feels wildly overstuffed, with very little justification for its runtime. My second thought was less charitable — much of it sounds like a bargain-bin, Temu version of R.E.M.

Taken individually, a handful of tracks are perfectly serviceable indie songs, but as a complete album it becomes a slog. The sheer length drains any momentum, and what might have worked in smaller doses turns into something repetitive and ultimately dull. By the halfway point, I was genuinely desperate for it to end. This is not an album I’ll be returning to.

Favourite tracks: Could You Be the One and Too Much Spice were decent enough indie tunes. I also enjoyed the Rockabiliy vibe of Actual condition.
Least favourite track: Fried — which sounds like the Foo Fighters before the Foo Fighters existed, and I hate the Foo Fighters. More broadly, a lot of the album feels generic and uninspired.
Album artwork: At least the cover is quite cute.

It’s weird that when I hear Bob Mould I immediately think of Michael Stipe and when I hear Michael Stipe I immediately think of Gord Downie, but I don’t think of Gord Downie when I hear Bob Mould.

Anyways, I mostly enjoyed Sugar’s Copper Blue when I had it generated a couple weeks ago, but I came away thinking I enjoy Husker Du more even though it’s been awhile since I listened to them. Now listening to Warehouse: Songs and Stories, I’m questioning how much I even enjoy Husker Du. This isn’t a bad album, I did enjoy it, but it’s long, the songs are all quite similar, and nothing really stood out to me.

For my sanity, I threw on Zen Arcade. Now that’s the Husker Du I remember! There’s much more of an edge on Zen Arcade, the songs are all so much more ferocious and they’re really experimenting and pushing boundaries on several tracks. Warehouse honestly sounds almost bland in comparison.

Again, I did still enjoy Warehouse: Songs and Stories, I just don’t understand why it’s included in the list over Zen Arcade.

Warehouse: Songs and Stories - 3/5
Zen Arcade - 5/5

Despite being 20 songs long that all sounded quite similar, it only really got old towards the very end where I thought the songs dropped off in overall quality. Not everything was a hit, but there were many tracks that I definitely enjoyed, such as the opening song, Too Much Spice, and She Floated Away. High 3

Never heard this before despite loving Zen Arcade - sounds like a fuzzier REM from the same era. Could happily lose about 20 minutes but there's some fantastic songs here

A band I always feel I ought to like but never quite manage to. Something about the way their albums are mixed ends up sounding thin and tinny, so the abrasive aggressive guitars end up come across as scratchy and grating and the voice as overly nasal and annoying - the overall effect is fizzy and muffled. The recordings really don't do justice what could be great songs, proto pop punk brimming with hooks and tight riffs and inventive playing.

Really boring, really fast. It was also WAY too long

20 songs over an hour and 9 minutes and I didn't hate a single one!

20 songs over an hour and 9 minutes and I didn't love a single one!

A true shrine to all that is mid.