Husker Du was an American rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1979. The band's continual members were guitarist/vocalist Bob Mould, bassist/vocalist Greg Norton, and drummer/vocalist Grant Hart.
Husker Du first gained notability as a hardcore punk band, later crossing over into alternative rock. Mould and Hart were the principal songwriters for Husker Du, with Hart's higher-pitched vocals and Mould's baritone taking the lead in alternating songs.
The new name originated during a rehearsal of the Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer". Unable to recall the French portions sung in the original (e.g. Qu'est-ce que c'est?), they instead started shouting any foreign-language words they could remember, including the title of the popular 1970s memory board game Husker Du? (the phrase meaning "do you remember?" in Danish and Norwegian).
The name stuck, and they added heavy metal umlauts to it. Mould said that they liked the somewhat mysterious qualities of the name and that it set them apart from other hardcore punk groups with names like "Social Red Youth Dynasty Brigade Distortion". Mould also said that, while Husker Du enjoyed much hardcore punk in general, they never thought of themselves as exclusively a hardcore group and that their name was an attempt to avoid being pigeonholed as such.
The following year,1984, Husker Du recorded the double album Zen Arcade in 45 hours for the cost of $3,200.
Zen Arcade is a concept album[citation needed] following a boy who leaves home to face a harsh and unforgiving world. Its artistic and conceptual ambitions were a great stretch given the purist sentiment then prevalent in U.S. punk rock.
Zen Arcade received critical praise and significant mainstream music press attention, ending up on several year-end best-of lists.[citation needed] It also helped expand the band's audience beyond the punk community. In his review for Rolling Stone, David Fricke described Zen Arcade as "the closest hardcore will ever get to an opera ... a kind of thrash Quadrophenia."
Label : SST Records SST CD 027
Format : CD, Album, Reissue
Country : US
Released : 1984
Genre : Rock
Style : Hardcore, Punk
Tracklist
01. Something I Learned Today 1:58
02. Broken Home, Broken Heart 2:01
03. Never Talking To You Again 1:39
04. Chartered Trips 3:33
05. Dreams Recurring 1:40
06. Indecision Time 2:07
07. Hare Krsna 3:33
08. Beyond The Threshold 1:35
09. Pride 1:45
10. I'll Never Forget You 2:06
11. The Biggest Lie 1:58
12. What's Going On 4:23
13. Masochism World 2:43
14, Standing By The Sea 3:12
15. Somewhere 2:30
16. One Step At A Time 0:45
17. Pink Turns To Blue 2:39
18. Newest Industry 3:02
19. Monday Will Never Be The Same 1:10
20. Whatever 3:50
21. The Tooth Fairy And The Princess 2:43
22. Turn On The News 4:21
23. Recurring Dreams 13:47
