Bob Mould: See A Litle Light

When Hüsker Dü split over innuendo about drugs, suicide and selling out, the members found themselves in terra incognita. After all they began the eighties as a hardcore band on indie SST Records before becoming a major label college rock band in the mid-eighties and finally ending the decade as solo artists. (Well Bob Mould and Grant Hart became solo artists, Greg Norton went back to the kitchen.)


Mould sobered up, got a new record label and sequestered himself in a farmhouse to write the gentler-but-not-kinder songs that would become Workbook in 1989 . Workbook's folk-rock sound, with its prominent cello and acoustic guitar, found critical acclaim but no more commercial success than Hüsker Dü. This problem prompted a re-think for Mould's next solo outing (the results of which in turn prompted an even greater re-think; Mould's a re-thinking kinda guy.) Whether you fully embrace this slightly more pastoral album or not (and it's surface calm is deceptive), it's not hard to believe that "See A Little Light" is one of the most gorgeous songs he's ever written.



Besides the luscious pop of the title track, this e.p. contains the more Hüsker Dü-ish, "All These People Know" as well as a rawer live take on the album's "Compositions for the Young and Old" and Mould's blistering live version of Richard Thompson's "Shoot Out the Lights".

{Thanks to the incredible Hüsker Dü Database for help with this post.}

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