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Year 1984, I believe this album is the brightest and most accomplished legacy of the punk era, and the term hardcore is just a pretext.
3 guys: Grant Hart (drums), Greg Norton (bass), Bob Mould (flying V guitar and voice) 23 songs, half written by Bob Mould, the other half written by the other leader Grant Hart.
It seems absurd for punk standards, but this is a concept album like The Wall, exploring the reality of the post-punk kid, from adolescence to maturity... a reality scraped by spasms of life and death in a collision snapshot.
I would like to try to revisit the album with the emotions that it evoked in me the first few times I listened to this masterpiece: it starts with a dive, the rumble of bass and guitar that immediately unleashes the characteristic Mouldian wall of sound (Cobain didn't invent anything): Something I Learned Today and Broken Home Broken Heart, a one-two napalm blow that leaves you breathless right away. The unexpected third track for a punk hardcore band like Hüsker, Never Talking To You Again, is a folk ballad, a symptom of a band without compromises. Chartered Trip is circular in the harmonic texture, then the backwards tapes of Dreams Recurring reveal the torment of the post-punk kid, and you descend to the point of no return, into the psychic hell of the adolescent through uncontrollable and furious outbursts of the alienation that strikes the boy between 13 and 17 years old, Jung would say... These are souls discovering the impulses of their bodies when the first hairs see the light under the armpits... and I assure parents forgetful of the fact that they went through it too, that these are deeply screwed but tremendously normal thoughts and behaviors because they are natural.
Like the tracks we will hear now, Hare Krishna, a real initiation rite to a violent life, Beyond The Threshold is the discovery of a first sexual impulse with awe, 'pride' is the desire for that charge to culminate in something, I'll Never Forget You and Biggest Lie are the catastrophe of every unsatisfied body that destroys through precisely the pan-sexual satisfaction which can also be punching a peer as Jung and Freud explained to us. One after another, Hüsker Dü shoots us with unsustainable rhythms these vital frescoes of the wildest animal adolescence, pervaded by impulses of violence and death at levels of manic, subgenital intoxication. This is a soul cursing, agitating, blaspheming in the pain felt within a new body unknown to oneself. It is said that at the end of this sextet of hardcore pieces, the 3 would smash the recording studio with chairs so great was the epilepsy and energy in circulation... listen to believe.
What’s Going On slightly eases the dizziness, but we still fly high, sometimes lacking air, the intensity does not decrease, honky-tonk rhythm and shouted lyrics in chorus with an enthusiastic fury and very, very old style punk. The instruments seem hammered rather than played, the atmosphere then becomes chaotic with the instruments coming and going, the guitar that goes off on its own tangent, and so the drums and honky-tonk piano imitate it, with findings echoing the Velvet Underground of Waiting For The Man, sublime. Masochism World is the definitive acquired maturity (or confidence in one's own means) of the boy, it is firepower that annihilates all the punk of '77 and thereabouts. Masochism World is the effect of 120 grams of cocaine shot in the nostril, a hoarse voice screaming as if God were addressing us from above, lightning (I seem like D'Aguanno damn... but it's hard to keep composure).
At this point, we are exhausted, thankfully Standin At The Sea comes like a bath of calming salts on our skin scorched by uncontrollable impulses, it might be wise for parents to lock the child in some correctional facility, maybe one that robs you of insurance only to say "your child is healed and can be profitably reintegrated into society". A young person doesn't accept this state of affairs, but is now of age, manages to contain their emotions even if not always, and for the wilder ones has built a friendly cage (the superego) with which to restrain, and even the course of the music results more calm though never subdued: Somewhere is finally within the norm, beautiful and catchy choruses, but forget about integration... never that.
Imaginary instrumental interludes like One Step surround the story, like inner revelations that fortify ours. It's time for Pink Turns To Blue, cryptic lyrics, for one of Hüsker Dü's greatest songs, majestic celestial walls of guitar, splendid harmonic turns, sugary Wall Of Sound that it is a magnificence to lose oneself in every time, the mysterious charm that this song exudes will never fade. Immediately after, newest Industry, another superb melody, punk has graduated and reached its maturity. Another interlude, this time pianistic, Monday Will Never Be The Same. Whatever, immense and with another memorable chorus.
Hüskers seem to dish out grand pieces like nothing, as Jesus multiplied fish.
Penultimate track: not yet satisfied with what they have made us listen to, here comes another frontal assault, another punk anthem to shout in chorus all together... Turn On The News, for me, everything is perfect in this track: vigorous and engaging propulsion, heart-stopping riff, another devastating chorus (choruses abound), and a resounding apocalyptic end of the world closure. Final track: but what am I saying, track... apocalyptic catharsis, Reoccurring Dreams draws the contours of anguish, and it does so for 14 minutes, 14 minutes of psychedelic vertigo, the emo-core wall of Mould's guitar spirals on itself, now harboring abrasive discharges of searing feedback, and all of this not in a random and free way but with a well-defined central theme: here lies the greatness, invoking free jazz or the Velvet Underground to find an outlet for this 14-minute mad chaos, the central theme twists on itself and even allows itself to go into free-core drifts (what an ugly term!!) and all of this to emphasize the derailed psyche of the punk generation.
This final chaos testifies that there is no way out of the discomfort, it doesn't seem like a happy ending, recurring dreams... one does not so easily escape their own tormented fantasies. Oh Oh... I slightly exceeded the 30 lines... but how can one not exceed them when wanting to talk about Zen Arcade?
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Something I Learned Today (01:58)
Something I learned today
Black and white is always grey
Looking through the window pane
I'm not inside your brain
Something I learned today
Yield to the right-of-way
Stopping at a four-way sign
Someone else's rules, not mine
Something I learned today
Never look straight in the sun's rays
Letting all the sunshine in
Can't remember where I've been
03 Never Talking to You Again (01:39)
There are things that I'd like to say
But I'm never talking to you again
There's things that I'd like to phrase some way
But I'm never talking to you again
I'm never talking to you again
I'm never talking to you
I'm tired of wasting all my time
Trying to talk to you
I'd put you down where you belong
But I'm never talking to you again
I'd show you everywhere you're wrong
But I'm never talking to you again
04 Chartered Trips (03:33)
I picked up my belongings
In a nylon carry-all
I hear the porter call
He said, "The sky's the limit
On this chartered trip away,"
Guess I'd better stay
Out there on the desert
I see trees on every wall
Nothing's ever solved
He said, "The sky's the limit
On this chartered trip away,"
Guess I'd better stay away
I thought I owed myself a trip away
I wanted to go to places
I have never been away
I looked at the pictures
Imagine where they lay away
On a beach, by the sea
Where their clothes all lay away
I picked up my belongings
In a nylon carry-all
I hear the porter call
Horizon is oblivious, chartered trip away
Guess I'd better stay
Out there on the desert
I see trees on every wall
Nothing's ever solved
Horizon is oblivious, chartered trip away
Guess I'd better stay away
I thought I owed myself a trip away
I wanted to go to places
I have never been away
I looked at the pictures
Imagine where they lay away
On a beach, by the sea
Where their clothes all lay away
I picked up my belongings
In a nylon carry-all
I hear the porter call
He said, "There's no returning
From this chartered trip away,"...
06 Indecision Time (02:07)
Questions like a candle that's burning at both ends
Never find an answer that fits in your plans
Back and forth between the good and the bad it's indecision time
You're so natural, you're so free
So don't decide what's best for me
Nothing in your life is ever going on course
You wonder if living could be much worse
Go to the left, go to the right
Your mind is going to keep you up all night
You twist in your sleep, grabbing the sheets, sweating to death
Sucking on pollution like a rattle in your mouth
You're a big fucking kid, you don't know what you're about
Tell me about your fellow man
You wipe their shit all over your hands
07 Hare Krsna (03:33)
Krsna walking down the street
Touching me with lotus feet
Going to talk to the Radharani
Going to ask her for her $
Hare Krsna
Hare Krsna
Krsna Krsna
Hare Hare
Hare Rama
Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Hare
09 Pride (01:45)
Why did you back me into a corner?
I didn't mean it, it was just an act
My friend's outside, can't he come in?
And everybody else
Stupid pride
Selfish pride
Stupid pride
Why does everybody have to be like that?
"Out", just an act
His parents love him
They send him money
But he won't come back
No reaction, no response
Forget him, just forget him
10 I'll Never Forget You (02:06)
Told you everything I knew about me
Didn't listen to a word I say
Spill my guts, you just threw them away
Never cared about me
Only wanted to be your friend
Now I know that it's gotta end
Never cared a thing about me
And now, I will, I will
I will never forget you
I will never forgive you
11 The Biggest Lie (01:58)
You think you've made it to the top
Because people know your name
It's still the same
Your daydreams aren't forever
Better get your shit together for a new game
Back to your day job
Back to your girlfriend
Back to your hometown
The biggest lie
Passing harsher judgment
But you brought it on yourself by being you
Your trade your respect for no success
You tried to be a hero
But you end up nothing
13 Masochism World (02:43)
Can you feel it, feel it, feel it
In your soul
Can you tell me
Tell me if it's hot or cold
Can you tell me what it is
Does it hurt you when I do this
Stop it, stop it, stop it
You're pulling too hard
Stop it
You're going too far
I love it, I hate it, I love it
I hate it too
I love it
So how about you?
Can you tell me 'cause I don't know
Why don't you tell me why it is so
Confusing!
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Other reviews
By ngw
Zen Arcade is innovative not only for American hardcore but for punk as a whole.
This album is me.
By /stricnina/
I was overwhelmed by everything: anger, desolation, violence, the encyclopedia of Punk, whatever you want.
The crackling of a record player says it all without the help of anything or anyone, except our heart.
By GenitalGrinder
"One of the ten commandments of all Rock" (cit. Lewis Tollani)
Ad Maiora.
