Среда 21 Мар 2007, 9:38
Hüsker Dü has been taking up most of my listening time the last couple of weeks. I'm especially intrigued by Zen Arcade. It's everything I expect and hope for in a hardcore album. Well, almost everything. This could easily have been my favorite album, but it doesn't reach it potential due to a couple of reasons:
- Inconsistent lyrics
Zen Arcade suffers extremely under the inconsistency of the lyrics. You can tell their writing ability are still in development. We're talking about cliche's, cheap rhymes, and shallow lines. For example; one of the few songs on Zen Arcade where it's all wrong: Turn On The News
"If there's one thing that I can't explain
Is why the world has to have so much pain
With all the ways of communicating
We can't get in touch with who we're hating
So turn on turn on turn on the news
I hear it every day on the radio
Somebody shoots a guy he don't even know
Airplanes falling out of the sky
A baby is born and another one dies
Highways fill with refugees
Doctors finding out about disease
With all this uptight pushing and shoving
That keeps us away from who we're loving"
Are you *** kidding me? Is this on the same album as Something I Learned Today and Pride? I got to do what? TURN ON THE NEWS? This is just the cliche story of how the news has so much bad news on it, turned into a wannabe anthem with sing-along-vocals screaming "So turn on turn on turn on the news".
From Beyond The Threshold
"Hey hey hey
Got no place to stay"
Come on. You can do better than that. It's like they're saying to eachother: yo, what rhymes with stay. Hmm I don't know, let's just put hey hey hey because my wife is asking me to put out the garbage.
Beside the occasional cheapness of the lyrics, we find the missed opportunity of the concept album. Everyone is saying it's an album about a kid running away from home. Some say it's just an afterthought after recording everything and seeing some connecting with all the tracks, some say it was intentional. I tell you this: If it was, they could do a lot better. The subsequent tracks are everything but telling a normal story. We're going from screaming that he'll never forget and forgive you (I'll Never Forget You), to telling that your bigshot status job is just a big lie (The Biggest Lie), and from fantasising about the perfect place (Somewhere), to his girlfriend seamingly taking an overdose (Pink Turns To Blue). And let's not forget (I'll keep coming back to this), the inclusion of an anthem to TURN ON THE NEWS?!?!
- It's not a coherent piece of work
It just doesn't seem to work. I think it will always stay just a collection of songs to me. Not only is it because the great potential of being a true concept album isn't working (see previous point), but the songs just doesn't seem to want to work with eachother. Maybe it are the transitions (or lack there of), but I think it's mostly due to the fact that they don't seem to be able to use different styles succesfully in the same album. I know Zen Arcade is mostly praised for it's diversity, but when we're having the pop-like Pink Turns To Blue and a bunch of piano interludes in between the the most powerful and sincere forms of hardcore; I can't help but raise an eyebrow. Don't get me wrong; I love the interludes, but only on their own. This just doesn't seem to work. I'm all for diversity, but I feel I loved Zen Arcade more if they were just sticking to the hardcore and the occasional experementation of Dreams Reocurring and Reoccuring Dreams (which DO work in context).
- First half overshadows second half (perhaps even the most disturbing problem)
Perhaps it's because of the length, but second half (From "What's Going On" and further) feels less sincere, less honest, less powerful, and overall less brilliant.
Do not mistake this "rant" with completely destroying Zen Arcade; It is and will be one of my favorite records. But because it can't reach it's full potential; I'll always look at it with mixed feelings.. unfortunately.
Brb, I got to turn on the news
BTW: What's Going On is terrible