Husker Du - Flip Your Wig

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Music reviews of Flip Your Wig

Music Review: One of the band's very best
Rating: 5 Stars

Flip Your Wig downplays the aggressive punk attack of the previous few albums. Even the punkier numbers like "Every Everything" and "Hate Paper Doll" keep the melodies right up there in the front. However, if you think I'm saying that the Huskers have gone soft, you are quite mistaken. They attack the songs with as much ferocity as ever, this time around, they've brought the melodies more up to the front. The songs are all catchy, but also have dark overtones, which is how I like this kind of music to sound anyway. I love the ringing guitar found in the song "Games;" it reminds me a bit of R.E.M. with a little more fuzz thrown in for good measure. Grant Hart provides some great backing vocals on this track, even though they are subtly understated. "Makes No Sense At All" is catchy as hell and I am willing to bet you that you won't be able to get it out of your head once you've heard it. "Find Me" is cool because they use a tambourine in the intro. Also try listening to "Find Me" and the Pixies' "Caribou" back to back and see where ol' Black got his inspiration for that particular song. "The Baby Song" is a forty-five second instrumental slide whistle based song that is absolutely hilarious (I can actually picture a baby crawling in time to the music)! I don't think Husker Du made another song quite this funny elsewhere, but "The Baby Song" proves that the band certainly had a great sense of humor. For a change of pace, "Keep Hangin' On" is one of Grant Hart's greatest moments, he sings with his usual wistful passion, and the song seems to have a nervous energy crawling underneath it. The melodic backing vocals provide a suitably Byrds/Beatles-ish touch. The album closes with not one, but two experimental tracks, both of which are instrumentals, proving that they hadn't completely left behind the acute experimentation of Zen Arcade. The first of these two tracks, "The Wit and the Wisdom," starts off with an abrasive swirling guitar which then goes into some lightning fast solo work by Bob Mould (I love his solos; I think he's a great guitarist, he also used feedback extremely well). The last of the two, "Don't Know Yet" has an atmosphere that is more melancholy, and makes an effective use of backwards drum tracks. In fact, I think of the two as one piece, "Wit and Wisdom" represents a harrowing nightmare, while "Don't Know Yet" represents waking up, since the song has an "early morning" kind of feel to it. Just my interpretation.

Flip Your Wig closes out the holy trinity of the classic Husker Du albums (actually, quartet if you count the short but sweet Metal Circus EP, since it was the one that got the ball rolling anyway). All that aside, this is a great album to listen to, and if you're a fan, you won't want to be without this. If your new to Husker Du, I would actually recommend getting this one first, since it is less extreme, but still a great representation of this band's sound. In short, casual fans and diehards alike should find much to treasure here. This is a great album, and it deserves to be heard.

Description of Flip Your Wig

Alternative Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock