Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
A Good Idea (1992)
How do you follow up a legendary first act? If you're Bob Mould, you keep building on the legend. After the acrimonious split of his first band Husker Du, Mould went in a different direction with 1989's Workbook.
The loud guitar noise of Husker Du was mostly replaced with acoustics and other instrumentation. His next album, Black Sheets of Rain, was a heavier, pissed-off affair that didn't resonate with the record-buying public and saw him get dropped from Virgin Records. After a solo tour of Europe, Mould wrote songs that were more melodic while retaining their heaviness. In late 1991, he teamed up with bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcom Travis to form Sugar.
The timing was ideal for Sugar, as Nirvana and other bands had made alternative guitar rock popular. Sugar's first album, Copper Blue, came out in September 1992 on Rykodisc in the U.S. and Creation in the U.K. and it was an immediate hit. It hit #10 on the UK albums chart and was eventually named Album of the Year by NME. Videos for the songs "If I Can't Change Your Mind" and "Helpless" got airplay on MTV and Mould was venerated as an inspiration by folks like Kurt Cobain.
Copper Blue combined punk with power pop, creating a big-sounding anthem-packed record that appealed to the guitar-starved rock fans of the day. The funny thing was because the median age of alt-rock fans had dropped into the pre-teens (it was definitely strange to be standing in a Newbury Comics checking out the same music as the 10-year-old next to me), many of the people who were digging Sugar had no clue about Husker Du.
Mould's unique nasal bark of a voice also set the band apart from the many others plying their trade at the time, and he was aided by an experienced rhythm section (Barbe had played in Mercyland while Travis was known for Boston-area bands the Zulus and Human Sexual Response).
Copper Blue, which was reissued in 2012 by Merge Records, has been called a perfect record and I can't argue with that. "The Act We Act," "Helpless," "Changes," "Hoover Dam," "If I Can't Change Your Mind" are all bona fide classics, melding pop sensibilities with guitar fury. Mould has called "A Good Idea" an unintentional homage to the Pixies' "Debaser," which makes sense since the latter band recruited Kim Deal with an ad looking for someone who was into Husker Du and Peter, Paul and Mary.
Lyrically, the song is dark, with the narrator watching a couple frolicking in a river before the guy drowns the woman he's with, but musically, the song is upbeat in true Pixies fashion. "Some things are best left alone/Sometimes I'm best left alone/And sometimes I see you in the water/At night at night at night."
After the success of Copper Blue, Sugar released the Beaster EP, which was a collection of darker songs leftover from the Copper Blue sessions. A second album followed, 1994's excellent File Under: Easy Listening." I saw them on that tour at the Orpheum in Boston. I had front row seats for that impossibly loud show, but the biggest thing I was struck by was that my friend and I were the only people in the entire front section standing. It was an amazing show and I couldn't understand the lack of engagement.
Sugar split up a year later and Mould has continued releasing solo albums. After a brief embrace of electronic music in the early to mid-2000s, he has returned to heavy guitar rock for the last 15 years or so and it's been glorious. Backed by the killer rhythm section of Jason Narducy on bass and Jon Wurster on drums, Mould has released excellent albums and played punishing live shows, several of which I've seen. They came through Boston with a 20th anniversary celebration of Copper Blue, playing the entire album front to back and it was amazing. His latest album came out in 2020. Last fall saw a solo electric tour on which he debuted new material, so expect a new album out in the next year or so. The legend continues on.
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