Do the Dü

Hüsker Dü was a Minneapolis rock band whose name came from a Scandinavian board game meaning, "Do You Remember?" Well, no one who has ever listened to Hüsker Dü has ever forgotten.\nThe band, consisting of guitarist/vocalist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton and drummer/vocalist Grant Hart, revolutionized a style of rock that didn't become hip until after their 1988 breakup. While Nirvana certainly acknowledged their forebearers, it still bewilders me that Hüsker Dü isn't widely acknowledged as one of the great rock trios and one of the five best American bands ever.\nMinneapolis in the 1980s was one of the world's musical capitals with Prince revolutionizing pop music and bands like the Replacements, Loud Fast Rules (aka Soul Asylum) and Hüsker Dü in the growing post-punk scene at the time. For whatever reason, history has been kinder to the Replacements. No offense to the Replacements, a wonderful band in their own right, but not only was Hüsker Dü the better band, but they also have the greater enduring influence.\nIf the Replacements were the Rolling Stones of the Minneapolis scene, then Hüsker Dü was the Who of the scene. Mould was a one-man guitar squadron, more heart than virtuosity, but plenty of the latter nonetheless. Hart played drums sloppily but beautifully. If Mould was bent on catharsis, then Hart was there to liven things up with a melody. While Norton never gained the attention that his bandmates did, he deserves a medal just for keeping up with the relentless tunes and touring schedule. Currently a chef in suburban Minneapolis, it's as if he has taken the band's secrets with him.\nMould and Hart were the yin and the yang, though. They wrote and co-produced the albums, and still today, the sound explodes off the speakers. By the end, they were splitting writing and singing duties 50-50, clearly driving each other to get better.\nCalling Hart the poppy one and Mould the angry one would be a large oversimplification. Listen to Mould's "Ice Cold Ice," and tell me that song doesn't get stuck in your head for days. Listen to Hart's screams on "Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill," and I dare you to call it unaffecting.\nLyrically, they were simple and direct. They were neither clever like Elvis Costello nor goofy like the Ramones, the band that Mould idolized and the band that convinced him that he didn't have to practice heavy metal wankery to be good. Their songs dealt with personal politics, and the music lent itself to a powerful sincerity. For example, in "I Apologize" when Mould sings, "And it's your turn to look me in the eyes," he is penitent, confused and complicit all at once. When Fred Durst and his metal brethren yell and scream today, they sound like tuneless, obnoxious white trash morons comparatively.\nLooking back, despite the credibility and respect that their music demanded, I think Hüsker Dü really wanted to be famous. It had to be on their terms, though, and putting out seven albums and an EP between 1981 and 1987 didn't give their audience a chance to savor their previous accomplishment until they moved on to the next. Even at their relentless live shows they always had a batch of new songs just as you were getting used to the latest album.\nBy 1986, the band started to show the wear constant work had taken. On Candy Apple Grey, their first of two major label studio albums, Mould's song "Crystal" showed that drugs were beginning to drive them into the ground. Hart's heroin and alcohol problems were serious, and by January 1988, Hüsker Dü broke up having accomplished more quantitatively and qualitatively than most bands do in lifetimes three times as long.\nSince, Mould has gone back and forth between a solo career and another fine trio called Sugar that gave Mould more fame than he ever had in Hüsker Dü. His 1998 album, The Last Dog and Pony Show, marked the end of his electric phase, partly due to the physical damage to his ears and throat after going full throttle all those years. (He also recently revealed he had a brief stint as a pro wrestling script writer). Hart has backed away from the loud and the fast in recent years, and his 1999 album Good News for Modern Man shows that he has good music left.\nSo why not reunite? By pre-dating much of '90s-era "alternative" rock with their tunefulness and volume, we just simply never got a chance to appreciate them when they were still together. It's something they deserve the second time around, especially since rock history and rock radio has just about entirely ignored the 1980s underground splurge of creativity that led to the '90s rock revolution.\nThere is one more reason for a reunion: Mould and Hart turned being gay from being a Boy George soap opera into the biggest non-issue in an unforgettable career.