Despite loving Sugar's Copper Blue, I've never been able to get into Husker Du (blame the recording quality - a lame excuse, I know...) and haven't followed Bob Mould's solo career as closely as I might. But after reading his recent interview with Stevie Chick for the Guardian, I felt compelled to investigate new LP Blue Hearts. Exactly as sold, it's an absolute rager: furious lyrically, blistering musically - the impassioned howl of a man with plenty of fire left in his belly but also a keen ear for a melody.
Unsurprisingly, Mould's anger was aroused by everything going on around him, and Blue Hearts certainly feels like a pull-no-punches state-of-the-nation address. "Things are so bad now that no reasonable artist can keep their mouth shut", he told Chick. "And the words on this album are blunt. This is no time to be oblique or allegorical." It's a defence that IDLES would do well to deploy.
For Mould, the current parlous state of life in the US is horrifyingly reminiscent of his youth, and growing up gay in a country in the grip of Reaganism and the religious right. Sadly, he revealed that even the supposedly supportive, tight-knit punk community offered little sanctuary - he's not the first person I've heard mention Bad Brains' homophobia - and it's appalling to learn that a music publication (Spin) would stoop so low as to adopt tabloid tactics in publicly outing him against his will.
Over the course of the interview, he also spoke about his unlikely yet enthusiastic embrace of electronica and club culture via the gay scene and (for the first time) patching things up with Husker Du bandmate Grant Hart shortly before the latter's death: "Ultimately, our relationship ended as well as it could have. I was really grateful to have that chance, that time with him."
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