Track Listing

1. These Important Years
2. Charity Charity Prudence And Hope
3. Standing In The Rain
4. Back From Somewhere
5. Ice Cold Ice
6. You're A Soldier
7. Could You Be The One
8. Too Much Spice
9. Friend You've Got To Fall
10. She Floated Away
11. Bed Of Nails
12. Tell You Why Tomorrow
13. It's Not Peculiar
14. Actual Condition
15. No Reservations
16. Turn It Around
17. She's A Woman
18. Up In The Air
19. You Can Live At Home

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45332 in Music
• Released on: 1992-11-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

CD Description
Husker Du alienated hardcore purists with its double-lengthswan song. The radio-ready production sounded slick to manythat had thrilled to the slash-and-burn of the band's earlyrecords. The Huskers had become polished, and they no longer sounded like they were on the verge of a sonic meltdown. But those who value songcraft over attitude will find in WAREHOUSE a varied and accomplished set of songs. What the band lost in youthful anger they gained in compositional strength.
While Bob Mould's signature angst remains on stellar songs like "It's Not Peculiar", "Ice Cold Ice", and "No Reservations", some lightness creeps in. "Friend You've Got to Fall", with its chiming guitars, and the single "Could You Be the One" are exquisite power-pop. Lyrically, the message is abit more positive. On "These Important Years", Mould dispenses almost big-brotherly advice to his fans, even offering aqualified measure of hope that "it might turn out all right". Quite a change of heart from a man who wrote "Let's Go Die" a mere six years earlier. Among Grant Hart's strongest contributions here are "She's a Woman (And Now He is a Man)" and the cathartic closer, "You Can Live At Home Now".

Customer Reviews

Throw away the fillers and its stupendous
Husker Du signed off in early 1987 with this double album which weighs in at 20 tracks and 66 minutes - this from a band who released a double album in 1983 (the innovative eclectic Zen Arcade), two seperate albums in 1985 (the awesome punky New Day Rising and the similarly impressive Flip Your Wig), and then their major label debut, the slightly less thrilling, but still enjoyable Cany Apple Grey. Part of the reason why they were so prolific is that, like Lennon & McCartney, Bob Mould and Grant Hart split the songwriting more or less 50-50, effectively making it feasible to split this into 2 seperate albums.

The Bob MOuld offering is lyrically very mature, offering missives about being stoodf up by the lover you should've dumepd ages ago (Standing in the Rain), being stuck in a position you need to escape (Up In the Air, featuring the memorable lyric "is love another way to count the things you haven't got?"), trying to salvage a relationship (the grower Turn In Around) and Friend You've Got To Fall, an apparent attack on Grant Hart, as they did not like each other one bit by the end of the band. However, for me the best of Bob's 11 tracks are These Important Years - "revelations seem to be another way to make the days run faster anyway", the single Could You Be The One? and the lyrically interesting Bed Of Nails.

Grant Hart provides most of the louder moments, although the commercial sheen to the production keeps things a long way away from the stuff on SST. His finest pop song ever, She's A Woman (And Now He Is A Man) is an extremely catchy piece which, along with the Mould tracks mentioned, makes for a fine final quarter of the album. Too Much Spice looks at the effects of overdoing life and finishing up empty and joyless, which seems rather autobiographical. There is a jazzy influence to much of his work here, especially She Floated Away and Tell You Why Tomorrow, while the rather unexciting Actual Condition attempts a 50s sound. Charity, Chastity, Prudence and Hope is a great opening to his set of songs, a tale anyone who's attempted to rise up from nothing can relate to.

So, how does it all ahng together? Very well. In places, the tracks appear to be rivalling each other, with similar-themed tracks side by side so as to emphasise the divided nature of the group. While a few tracks aren't up to much, they can easily be programmed out, and there's still 50 minutes of fine rock on show.

Great songs in the Warehouse
As most people will now know this was the Huskers final album, but what a way to end a band! "Warehouse..." is probably the band's best album - and certainly their most accessible. The CD was originally a double album and bosts 20 songs off which only one is below par ("Turn It Around"). It's almost impossible to point out the best songs as the album is packed with "should-have-been-classics", but "Could You Be the One?" is clearly one of the best Bob Mould songs ever. However, to me The Grant Hart songs "She Floated Away" (which is a folk-song packed in a jazz-arrrangement) and the vastly underrated "Tell You Why Tomorrow" deserves special attention. A must-have album for all who's into solid rock music.

Husker Du Done and Dusted
Husker Du were one of the most prolific and influential bands to emerge from the US in the eighties. This, their seventh album in little over five years, is a fitting testament to their intense, but melodic hardcore sound. The songwriting chores are split pretty much evenly between Bob Mould and Grant Hart, and explore familiar themes of alienation, loneliness, helplessness and lost love. Yet despite the less than cheerful subject matter the music is always uplifting, from the album opener "These Important Years" to "You Can Live At Home", with Grant Hart screaming that, despite everything, running away from home may not be the answer.

This was supposed to be the record that would break Husker Du yet it ended with them breaking up, after the suicide of their manager, David Savoy. A shame really, because this is a melodic, literate, intelligent album that manages to be sad without being depressing- and, for those that care about such things, it rocks big time.

Bob Mould acheived greater success with Sugar, but this was when he was at his creative peak. Warehouse: Songs and Stories deserves a wider audience, make yourself a part of it.