In 1981, Husker Du arrived on the scene not with a whimper, but
\nwith a thud.<\/p>\n
Who else but this Minneapolis-based punk trio would make their
\ndebut,
\nLand Speed Record<\/i>, a live release featuring the band
\nliterally plowing through 17 songs in less than a half-hour? Who
\nelse would challenge the listener with an
\nif-you-can’t-follow-the-music-dive-outta-the-way attitude? Who else
\nwould challenge the Ramones for pure adrenaline in their
\nperformances?<\/p>\n
That all being said,
\nLand Speed Record<\/i> is not the kind of album you may think it
\nis. It’s sloppy, unproduced, and damn near unlistenable at times.
\nIt’s almost as if you’re listening to a tape an audience member
\nmade and decided to market as a bootleg.<\/p>\n
Part of the problem lies with the band — vocalist\/guitarist Bob
\nMould, bassist\/vocalist Greg Norton and vocalist\/drummer Grant Hart
\n— and their don’t-give-a-fuck attitude towards their own music. I
\nknow this is punk, and that conventional rules were often thrown
\nout the window when it came to punk rock at this time in its
\nhistory. But even
\nthis<\/i> goes past common sense.<\/p>\n
The mix of the show is absolutely atrocious; vocals and
\ninstruments fade to the forefront and the background, often with no
\nwarning. It’s almost as if the soundman was on the job for one day,
\nand was discovering just what all these cool little knobs and
\nslides did.<\/p>\n
In a sense, that’s really a shame, ’cause
\nLand Speed Record<\/i> could have been a nice showcase for such
\nHusker Du compositions as “MTC,” “All Tensed Up,” “Bricklayer”
\n(which would come into its own on
\nEverything Falls Apart<\/i>) and “Ultracore”. Instead, it’s a
\nsonic mess.<\/p>\n
Of course, some of the blame has to go on the band themselves.
\nThey roar through these songs with the gentleness of a bull in a
\nchina shop. Every song they touch basically gets splintered, to the
\npoint that the album becomes so much white noise.<\/p>\n
Disappointed? You bet I am… and that’s only because I know how
\ncapable the band really was. True, they were still working their
\nway up to the top of their craft (which point that was, though, is
\nstill up for discussion… I still lean towards
\nZen Arcade<\/i>), but is this really the first impression Mould
\nand company wanted to leave with listeners?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5761],"rating":[5620],"class_list":["post-36797","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-husker-du","rating-rating-f"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36797"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36797"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}