Anyone else not like Husker Du?

Long hailed as a classic of the American musical underground, Zen Arcade is one of those albums that has become 'critically acclaimed', and entered the collective subconcious of music geeks wolrdwide as being a work beyond reproach. Which is how it also became another sacred cow, ripe for the slaughter.

Seriously, it gives me no pleasure to write a negative diatribe, ripping the album apart track by track, so I won't. However, it also gives me no pleasure to actually listen to the whole turgid seventy minute mess, which I have done on numerous occasions. Every time this album comes up for debate, I'll state my opinion of it, and it will be defended by people far and wide, and by people who's taste and knowledge I have the utmost respect for. Then I'll get home, and think, go on, I'll give it one more chance. Each and every time, I find nothing new within the album.

Perhaps I'm expecting too much. It's already been much lauded as a great work, at the time, perhaps it did sound great. Today though, it's just a muddy mess. It sounds like it was recorded inside a studio lined with soggy newspapers, the sound engineer situated in a greasy spoon on the other side of a motorway, with his head stuck in a bowl of porridge. People often mention the experimental, varied nature of this recording, but that seems to have passed me by. Sure, there's a very occasional use of piano, some tape loops (wooo!), but it very rarely alters the pace or sound, it generally just adds to the tinny murk aesthetic the band clearly enjoy.

Frankly, this album bores me to my very core. The sound quality is awful, the band forgot to construct anything resembling a tune, the entire album is one long dirge-like guitar chug-a-thon. Add into the mix the fact that whichever vocalist takes over, they neglect to even acknowledge a key, and you have yourself a genuine overheated horror.