We're Not Who You Think We Are
Album: Copper Blue
Year: 1992
. . .
It’s one of the weird quirks of 1992 that the two best albums of the year both had a song called “Man on The Moon,” but outside of the titles, the two songs really have nothing in common.
We’ve already talked about R.E.M.’s “Man on the Moon,” the low-key samba that uses Andy Kaufman and Mott The Hoople to question the nature of reality itself.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2547: Sugar – “Man on the Moon”
Album: Copper Blue
Year: 1992
. . .
After the four near-perfect pop-punk songs that opened it, Copper Blue took a bit of a turn by finishing what was clearly the first side — in 1992, I was still mentally dividing my CDs into “side one” and “side two” — the the grand Beatles pastiche “Hoover Dam,” followed by the harrowing “The Slim,” all about losing a lover to AIDS.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2546: Sugar – “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”
Album: Copper Blue
Year: 1992
. . .
Kicking off with a super tight Malcolm Travis snare roll, “Helpless” is the probably the poppiest song on Copper Blue, a veritable ear candy hookfest that is impossible to get out of your head.
And why would you want to? Anchored by an incredibly short and simple guitar hook, “Helpless” lets Mould’s infinite guitar sustain carry it through the chorus, which opens the song, always a great trick.
Album: Copper Blue
Year: 1992
. . .
One of the secrets to the eternal greatness of Copper Blue is the sequencing, especially the first four songs on side one, which almost play like a mini-suite: the way the songs set each other up is fabulous. “A Good Idea’s” debasser line coming out of the end of “The Act We Act” is one thing, but the way the ringing guitars of “Changes” float out of the end of “A Good Idea” is almost beyond human ken. Which might be one of the reasons that “Changes” isn’t just my favorite song on Copper Blue, it’s up there with my favorite Bob Mould songs of all time, like “Celebrated Summer,” “Makes No Sense At All” and “Ice Cold Ice.”
Album: Copper Blue
Year: 1992
. . .
Of course, it wasn’t just Nirvana (and My Bloody Valentine) what got Bob Mould interested in returning to his strengths, it was also bands like the Pixies — who famously found Kim Deal by advertising for a bassist who loved Hüsker Dü & Peter, Paul & Mary (and now I wish the Hüskers had covered “Leaving on a Jet Plane” in the same supersonic way they covered “Eight Miles High“) — whose eternal “Debaser” provided inspiration to Copper Blue’s dark second song, the murder ballad “A Good Idea.”
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2543: Sugar – “A Good Idea”
Album: Copper Blue
Year: 1992
. . .
After Hüsker Dü suddenly (and surprisingly, at the time) broke up in 1988 after having released five fucking amazing albums in row — two of them doubles — in the 2 1/2 years between July 1984 and January 1987, Bob Mould & Grant Hart almost instantly went to work on their solo careers, both instantly distancing themselves from their former band.
And so Grant Hart’s 1988 “2541” single and subsequent 1989 Intolerance album were full of acoustic guitars and keyboards, and Mould’s first two solo albums, 1989’s Workbook and 1990’s Black Sheets of Rain were too light and too heavy, respectively. At the time, I preferred the latter to the former and still think the best song from that period was the b-side, “All Those People Know,” which played to his strength.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2542: Sugar – “The Act We Act”