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Flip Your Wig

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Flip Your Wig is the fourth album by American band Hüsker Dü, released in September 1985. It was the band's first self-produced album. It was the best-selling album to that point for the band's label SST Records, and the last album they made for that label. The band spent months in the studio to achieve higher-quality production for the album's melodic power pop songs.

Production

As of 1985 Hüsker Dü was the best-selling band on the SST Records.[1] The band had wanted to produce their previous album New Day Rising, but SST insisted on sending long-time label producer Spot.[2] With Flip Your Wig the band finally was allowed to self-produce.[1] Recording took place over several sessions in the band's hometown of Minneapolis[3] from March to June 1985, by far the longest the band had spent in the studio.[1] The cleaner production complemented the more melodic songs, still performed with heavily distorted guitars in a high-powered manner.[4]

Songs

Guitarist Bob Mould and drummer Grant Hart each wrote roughly half the songs,[4] which continued the band's trend toward power pop and away from the fast, noisy hardcore punk of their earliest material.[5]

"Makes No Sense at All" was released as a single,[3] with "Love Is All Around" (the theme song of the Mary Tyler Moore Show) on the b-side.[6][7] The "Makes No Sense at All" video was the band's first[3] and includes both songs, back-to-back.[citation needed] "Makes No Sense at All" was the band's first song to achieve singificant airplay on album-oriented rock radio.[8]

Release and reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[9]
Chicago Tribune[10]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[11]
Spin Alternative Record Guide9/10[12]
The Village VoiceA−[13]

Flip Your Wig appeared via SST in September 1985. It débuted at No. 5 on the CMJ album charts and received more radio ariplay and mainstream press attention than the band's earlier releases, including stories in Creem, Spin,[8] Rolling Stone.[14] Robert Christgau declared in The Village Voice that with the album's production the band had "never sounded so good",[13] and the album placed in the top ten of the magazine's critics' poll for 1985 along with New Day Rising.[8] Flip Your Wig became SST's best-selling album at the time of its release,[15] moving 50,000 copies in its first four months.[3]

By the time the album was released Hüsker Dü had signed a record deal with the major-label Warner Music Group,[16] who were keen to release the album themselves.[17] However, out of loyalty, and because of SST's appointment of new promotions manager Ray Farrell, the album was given to SST.[18] The title track and "Keep Hanging On" became staples of the band's live shows, while power pop anthem "Makes No Sense at All" was featured in a music video; this song was sometimes performed by Mould in his 1990s solo career.[citation needed]

Decades later, Bob Mould saw Flip Your Wig as "the best album Hüsker Dü ever did".[19] Ira Robbins and John Leland at Trouser Press describe the album as "Positively brilliant — fourteen unforgettable pop tunes played like armageddon were nigh" and rate "Makes No Sense at All" as "one of 1985's best 45s".[20] AllMusic's review says "Flip Your Wig would be a remarkable record on its own terms, but the fact that it followed New Day Rising by a matter of months and Zen Arcade by just over a year is simply astonishing."[21]

Track listing

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Flip Your Wig"Bob Mould2:33
2."Every Everything"Grant Hart1:56
3."Makes No Sense at All"Mould2:43
4."Hate Paper Doll"Mould1:52
5."Green Eyes"Hart2:58
6."Divide and Conquer"Mould3:42
7."Games"Mould4:06
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
8."Find Me"Mould4:05
9."The Baby Song"Hart0:46
10."Flexible Flyer"Hart3:01
11."Private Plane"Mould3:17
12."Keep Hanging On"Hart3:15
13."The Wit and the Wisdom"Mould3:41
14."Don't Know Yet"Mould2:14

Personnel

Charts

Chart rankings
Chart (1985) Peak
position
UK Indie Chart 1[22]

References

  1. ^ a b c Azerrad 2001, p. 191.
  2. ^ Azerrad 2001, p. 189.
  3. ^ a b c d Earles 2014, p. 152.
  4. ^ a b Azerrad 2001, pp. 191–192.
  5. ^ Azerrad 2001, pp. 191–192; Earles 2014, p. 152.
  6. ^ "Husker Du Press Releases -- Flip Your Wig". www.thirdav.com. Retrieved 2016-05-26.
  7. ^ "Hüsker Dü — Makes No Sense At All 7"/CD3". www.thirdav.com. Retrieved 2016-05-26.
  8. ^ a b c Azerrad 2001, p. 192.
  9. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Flip Your Wig – Hüsker Dü". AllMusic. Retrieved March 18, 2010.
  10. ^ Kot, Greg (October 11, 1992). "As Bob Mould Went, So Went Rock Music". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved June 12, 2016.
  11. ^ Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian, eds. (2004). "Hüsker Dü". The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. London: Fireside Books. p. 399. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  12. ^ Weisband, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). "Hüsker Dü". Spin Alternative Record Guide (1st ed.). New York: Vintage Books. p. 187. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
  13. ^ a b Christgau.
  14. ^ Tannenbaum 1985.
  15. ^ Earles 2010, p. 165.
  16. ^ Earles 2010, p. 177.
  17. ^ Mould, Bob (2011). See A Little Light The Trail Of Rage And Melody. p.109: Little, Brown and Co. ISBN 978-0-316-04508-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  18. ^ Earles 2010, p. 178; Mould & Azerrad 2011, p. 110.
  19. ^ Mould & Azerrad 2011, p. 103.
  20. ^ Leland & Ira.
  21. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/album/flip-your-wig-mw0000190362
  22. ^ Lazell 1997.

Works cited

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