Customer Reviews

Flip Your Wig

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at the time this record came out I was sad.. hurt and broken up by the fonz jumping over the shark,.. or was is that who ever produced this didnt know how to mic drums.. and I thought there was only 2 or 3 good songs on it.. but now.. compared to the poo that is out there.. its a great record.. I still say "thier jumping the shark on this one... but a last good effort..

(www.ghlysptwld.com)

Flip Your Wig was the second album that Husker Du released in 1985, and was also the first in which usual producer Spot had no involvement in. From the very first notes that open the title track, Flip Your Wig certainly sounds a bit cleaner, since this time the band themselves had a larger contribution in the production. Gone is the harsh intensity of the last few albums, here, they've replaced it with a richer guitar tone and have gotten a fuller drum sound. While the album is less intense than its predecessor New Day Rising, the Huskers make up for it by delivering their strongest set of songs yet. They also take lessons from the more melodic tracks from the previous album (namely "Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill" and "Celebrated Summer," two of my favorite Husker Du songs, by the way) and expand on that palette by adding even more melody. "Makes No Sense At All" and "Flexible Flyer" are certainly catchy enough, but after hearing the moody euphoria of "Green Eyes," I came to the realization that Bob Mould and Grant Hart are the best songwriting duo since John Lennon and Paul McCartney (I'm serious about this). I love the Beatles, but any band who writes songs like "Green Eyes" and "Celebrated Summer" are certainly worthy of a rivalry with the Fab Four.

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.

I've heard some poorly-recorded albums in my lifetime, but "Flip Your Wig" may well take the cake. I mean, there's raw production, and then there's lazy production, and this album is an example of the latter. The overall sound is sterile and distant, Bob Mould's searing guitar work is typically short-circuited, and the bass is rarely even audible. Strangely enough, the only aspect of this album that holds up is the drumming. Grant Hart was clearly a great drummer, and there's no hiding that fact.

It's too bad that "Flip Your Wig" suffers from such lousy recording quality, because it's got a bunch of good songs on it, and even some great ones. Much has been made about how well Husker Du's later albums reconciled punkish energy and old-school pop instincts, and this album certainly confirms such an assessment. The high-octane power-pop classic "Makes No Sense At All" boasts one of the catchiest choruses in history and some absolutely maniacal drumming from Hart. The opening title track and "Games" are effective meetings of memorable hooks and pulverizing walls of instrumental noise, while Hart's "Keep Hanging On" is an anthem that even a Springsteen fan could love. There's some great harder stuff here too: Hart's punkish "Every Everything" is a slab of aggression that will have you banging your head in a matter of second, and "Divide And Conquer" is a socio-political anthem of stunning power.

Throughout this album you can hear the origins of what would later gain the label "alternative rock," even if Husker Du weren't quite as influential as, say, the Pixies. Of course the bands now commonly labelled alternative tend to xerox the formula found on this and similar albums, but that's hardly Husker Du's fault. So check these guys out; not only were the bringing together aggression and catchiness before the likes of Nickelback, they were doing it better.

This is the album on which, for me, Husker Du tied all the strands of their raucouc, melodic and spontaneous sound together into a single flawless tapestry. More importantly, the album represents a welcome middle ground between the bludgeoning brutality,laced with hints of melody that constituted their 'New Day Rising' masterpiece, but avoids the full on melodic assault of (still wonderful) later releases like 'Candy Apple Grey'. Here, Grant and Mould, surely two of the most prolific songwriters around, turn out a near perfect selection of tunes which is pleasingly varied and almost instantly enjoyable. From the first twangs of guitar on the opening title track, followed closely by Mould's eccentric and underated vocals, a more melodic direction is apparent. Husker Du truly seems to have matured: witness the pop stylings of 'Green Eyes' or the up tempo harmonies on 'Hate Paper Doll'- the progression from the rage exemplified by something like '59 Times the pain'is tangible and necessary. At any rate, this is an extremely solid album. The title track soars, pauses the soars again, with vocals shared between Hart and Mould, who come together for a final, massive chorus, as they do on 'Divide and Conquer', a Husker Du song which adresses political issues, albeit it in a rather garbled fashion. 'Makes No sense at All' is the hook filled, Mould penned centrepiece single, with all the dichotomy of angry guitars and Grants frenzied drumming coupled with a beautiful chorus weve come to expect from the Huskers. Later on we get the down tempo 'Find me' with an intriguing lead guitar from Mould, while 'Flexible Flyer' and 'Private Plane' see 'Flip Your Wig' at its most calming and smooth. The album is closed out by a pair of ferocious andchallenging instrumentals, which are dense and unexpected: what other band aside Husker Du could round off an album of pop-rock tunes with two brutal washes of atonal, guitar lked noise, in which Hart seems to have lost himself in a haze of drumming aggression? Proof positive Husker Du were streets ahead of their contemporaries, an honour they consolidate their hold on with this release.
Any Husker Du fan must own this album, it is essential. Fans of rock, with a punk edge, but with melodies and harmonies to rival the best,pick it up as well.

This album is a wonderful combination of pop and noise.

However, as with nearly all Husker Du albums, the production is terrible! If only it had been recorded by someone who knew what he/she was doing................!

Awash in the distorted chorusing of Bob Mould's flying V guitar and Grant Hart's manic percussion, including heaping helpings of jangling tambourine, Flip Your Wig finds Husker Du in total control of their production for the first time, producing a neo-Spectorian Wall of Sound that perfectly complements what is perhaps their most "pop" collection of songs. From the sly humor of the title track (which chronicles their rise to demi-stardom) to the romantic "Green Eyes," the wistful "Flexible Flyer," the Dylan-goes-punk insult of "Makes No Sense At All," or the outright silliness of "The Baby Song," every track delivers. One of the best recordings by one of the most influential bands of the last quarter-century.

Following the hardcore of Metal Circus and the psychedelic overtones of Zen Arcade, some may have been surprised by the more "pop" feel of this record, though in hindsight, the crystalline buzz of New Day Rising foreshadowed it...