Hüsker Dü ‎– Makes No Sense At All / Love Is All Around

“While the primal blast of Black Flag’s early releases sounded the clarion call for what would become the hardcore punk revolution, SST, the label founded by Black Flag leader Greg Ginn, ironically gave a voice to a number of important bands would take the faster-and-louder esthetic into new and unexpected directions. Black Flag became the first real link between punk and metal, Minutemen fused hardcore with arty funk and jazz accents, Meat Puppets added a Southwestern psychedelic accent to their speedy thrash, and most notably Hüsker Dü took the bruising rhythms of hardcore punk and found a way to graft them onto pop tunes. “Makes No Sense at All,” from the band’s fifth album, Flip Your Wig, was perhaps the group’s greatest fusion of punk and pop; Bob Mould’ s lyric was a short-tempered rant against some nameless significant other who apparently has a number of control issues, and his guitar had all the fuzz-drenched downstroke of his work on Metal Circus or Zen Arcade. But with Mould and Grant Hart taking over production duties for the first time, the wall of guitars sounded less like noise, and took on the reverberant grandeur Roger McGuinn’s ringing 12-string brought to the classic Byrds’ recordings. Just as importantly, Hart’s backing vocals had evolved into actual harmonies rather than mass ranting, and his drumming had calmed down (and slowed down) just enough to give the song a pulse that could inspire something more calming than a furious skank. And Mould had, quite simply, written one of his best melodies, capable of containing the furious energy of his guitar style while still offering a potent melodic hook that made the most of the band’s psychedelic undertow. While Zen Arcade and New Day Rising proved that Hüsker Dü were capable of writing songs rather than rants, “Makes No Sense at All” showed that the group could write a power pop anthem worthy of either the Buzzcocks or the Raspberries without abandoning their personality in the process. While SST released “Makes No Sense at All” as a single (backed with a jokey but tuneful cover of “Love Is All Around,” the theme from The Mary Tyler Moore Show) and produced a video that received a smattering of MTV airplay, it’s interesting to imagine what might have happened to Hüsker Dü if a song with such potential had been released a year later, after the band had signed to a major label who could have promoted it to mainstream radio.” – allmusic.com

Label: SST Records – SST 051

Format: Vinyl, 7″, 45 RPM, Single

Country: US

Released:

VG+/VG+. Light staining/sleeve discoloration