Punk rock has been around long enough to hold within its musical boundaries a slew of albums considered both classic and essential. We here at Dying Scene love and appreciate these classic albums, but every once and a while we have the urge to challenge what the community has deemed sacred. Every Saturday, two Dying Scene writers will square off head-to-head and either attack or defend one of these so-called classics. Up for slaughter today is Husker Du‘s “Zen Arcade”. Does the 1984 classic hold up today? You be the judge. Jason Stone will be defending and Carson Winter will be attacking.
The Defense
I’ve got to admit that I grinned ear to ear when the assignment to review Zen Arcade hit my inbox. For my money, Hüsker Dü remains one of the more overlooked bands in the punk panacea. Along with the Minutemen and a select few others, Hüsker Dü served to bridge the gap between the formative years of punk and hardcore and the more melody-driven rock sound that would eventually become classified as ‘alternative.’
Trying to step back and objectively explain why you like a classic album, and why it is worthy of its rightful place as a classic album in the first place, is no easy task. It’s especially difficult with an album that is as complex as Zen Arcade. The band’s second full-length (which I personally rank a close second to Candy Apple Grey in the Hüsker Dü catalog) is certainly an ambitious release, which is what I think turns some people off. Like Double Nickels On The Dime from our Sacred Cow Saturday discussion a few weeks back, Zen Arcade is to be remembered not necessarily for one or two standout tracks, but for the sheer volume (double meaning intended) of music contained within its borders.
Released in 1984 as sort of a post-punk Quadrophenia (a sentiment that, in hindsight, has been printed in other places but that I swear I thought of first), Zen Arcade is meant to be taken as a whole; as such, no singles were released from the album. Instead, it’s a concept album that tells the very punk rock tale of a confused, angry, frustrated young male who finds himself alienated from, and by, his family. As a result, our protagonist takes off, running away in a search for some sense of direction or purpose or connection to something greater. Drugs, girls, death, religion, chaos and more confusion all, as could be expected, enter the fold. Though it is very much a ‘guitar rock’ album, the music, as a result, varies widely, from straight up guitar driven rock (“Turn On The News,” my personal favorite track) to avant garde garage rock (“Hare Krsna”) to instrumental, psychedelic, feedback-laden post-punk (“Dreams Reocurring” and its expanded cousin, album closer “Reocurring Dreams”) to solitary acoustic folk (“Never Talking to You”), all while keeping its roots firmly implanted in the fertile soil of the expanding hardcore scene. The variation in theme keeps the album from becoming monotonous, no easy task given that it was a 23-track double album in its original form.
While the the music is certainly noteworthy, the vocals (Mould’s especially) are what pushes the album into the stratosphere. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve long found Mould to possess one of those voices that instantly commands your attention and gets you to buy in to what he’s selling. Frankly, Mould could sing a romance novel or a Boston phone book and I’d love it. It’s Zen Arcade that started that trend (I find Metal Circus and Everything Falls Apart a little too hardcore for my tastes). Mould obviously had a lot of pent up frustration and confusion of his own, and does a pitch-perfect job here of mirroring the main character’s feelings, oscillating between exasperation, anger, curiosity and acceptance. “I’ll Never Forget You” and “Something I Learned Today” tell a particularly poignant story, finding Mould channeling something that was previously buried deep down and was fighting tooth-and-nail to not be let out.
Learning in hindsight that most of the tracks were recorded in a single take (the band reportedly committed all of Zen Arcade to wax in an epic recording session that lasted less than two full days) makes perfect sense. The edges are rough in spots, but they are a cathartic sort of rough rather than sloppy, admittedly a fine line. If Zen Arcade (and Hüsker Dü by extension) has been one of those overlooked periods of punk rock history for you…seriously…change that now.
The Attack
I could never understand why a perfectly talented hardcore band would want to go and muck everything up by becoming a bland, predictable (and oh God! Insipid! So Insipid!) mainstream rock band, even one with the underground credibility prefix ‘alternative’ tagged on as a superficial reminder of an origin. But nevertheless, this is the road Hüsker Dü chose, and before I go any further, I must say this: there’s nothing inherently wrong with Hüsker Dü’s progression. I don’t think they sold out, and I certainly don’t feel like they changed to attract more fans. It’s a matter of taste. But, even after saying that– Zen Arcade still isn’t a good album, and its problems transcend the obstacles of personal taste.
The truth is, on Zen Arcade, Hüsker Dü hadn’t completely gone the way of alt rock. Revisiting it now, it sounds like a missing link between their two sounds, with a hefty dose of (poorly conceived) experimentalism. A lot of the album is comprised of an early version of melodic hardcore, before Bad Religion had perfected and codified it. For me, this is probably the most interesting aspect of the album. While Zen Arcade doesn’t move me, it is a piece of punk rock history to be respected.
“Something I Learned Today” is simultaneously the biggest problem with Zen Arcade and my favorite aspect of it. I haven’t mentioned it yet, but Hüsker Dü’s magnum opus is a rock opera. Now, by its very nature, a rock opera is self-indulgent, experimental, and inaccessible. It demands listeners follow the lyrics, something which is often easier said than done. It also requires a sense of rigid self control on behalf of the artist– something to fight against that unattractive self-indulgence. Basically, it’s a difficult form to master, and very few artists, punk or otherwise, have put out worthy rock operas. The reason I like “Something I Learned Today” is pure: simply put, it sounds good. It’s a fast hardcore song with a dose of melody, and that, of course appeals to my sensibilities. The reason that it fails the album is that it wasn’t conceived as a part of it. “Something I Learned Today” is a stand alone song, with little meaning, made painfully clear when one opens the liner notes to read the conveniently rhymed words that make it up (“Something I learned today/ Yield to the right of way/ Stopping at a four way sign/ Someone else’s rules, not mine”).
The cosmically folky “Never Talking To You Again” is one of those songs that feel like their inclusion was a novelty. The song mostly consists of a repeated line and never quite justifies its place in the album. “Never Talking To You Again” has a melody and a rhythm, but to call it a song is misleading. It’s an immature songwriter’s trial run for something bigger and more meaningful. But, as it stands, it’s nothing more than a sandbox– chords and a melody for a young songwriter to play with.
My biggest problem with Zen Arcade is that it is so damn self impressed. It expects you to care that what they’re doing is different, whether or not the different they’re doing is good, worthwhile, or interesting. “Hare Krsna” falls into this category of see-what-we-can-do antics, and while it’s staticy psychedelic atmosphere is immediately memorable, it again fails when it comes to content. The song represents the protagonist falling in with a group hare krishna, but that’s all it does. Lyrically, the song suffers from being a statement– it makes no attempt at wringing meaning or emotional resonance from what is essentially presented as a neutral event.
“Pink Turns to Blue” is perhaps the most well conceived departure on the album, a slower, darker sounding track that manages to further the narrative and feel sincere, successfully operating in two realities. It holds some poignant imagery (“Angels pacing, gently placing, roses ‘round her head”) but marrs its own credibility with immature lyricism that betrays the author’s credibility (“Going out each day to score/ she was no whore/ But for me” is exactly the type of subtlety I’d expect from a teenager trying to discreetly brag about getting laid).
Zen Arcade is a mess of an album– it’s not well conceived, it’s not cohesive, and it’s not consistent. But, it has its moments. “Turn On The News” is one of the better songs on the album, a straight up rock song with well composed lyrics and heartfelt meaning. It mourns the amount of pain in the world without ever sounding defeated. It’s a righteously angry song that inflect the words it carries with an infectious fight. This is the song Zen Arcade should’ve ended on.
But, unfortunately, we’re subjected to a fourteen minute instrumental track instead. “Reoccurring Dreams” is where Zen Arcade abandons its concept completely and slides off into excess one last time. With “Turn On The News” being the closest thing we get to catharsis, ending on “Reoccurring Dreams” is almost like a splash of sobering ice water; as if Hüsker Dü wanted to assure us one last time that they don’t understand nuance.
Zen Arcade is a rock opera written by musicians enamored by the idea of a rock opera. And appropriately, it never is able to deliver what it promises. Undone by a lack of discipline, Zen Arcade is little more than a self-impressed, under-conceived mess.
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