If you've seen the first Pink Turns to Blue you already know where the name comes from.
This one picks up where that left off — and takes the restraint I showed on the original and throws most of it out the window.
Which feels right for a Hüsker Dü sequel.
The first description covered Zen Arcade and what the song meant. What it didn't cover is what happened after.
Hüsker Dü were so relentlessly prolific they released New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig in 1985 alone — the year after Zen Arcade.
Three albums in two years.
They signed to Warner Bros, one of the first hardcore bands to make that
jump, and the tension between Bob Mould and Grant Hart — two completely different songwriters sharing the same band — made every record feel like it was being pulled in opposite directions at once.
That tension is what made them great and eventually what finished them.
Their manager died on Christmas Day 1987.
The band broke up weeks later.
Grant Hart died in 2017.
Bob Mould still tours and still sounds like nobody else.
Some things get better when you stop holding back.
Same DNA as the original lamp — spattered light blue and neon pink over a darker blue body — but this time I was a lot less restrained with the splatter and the impact is completely different.
It's the same song played louder.
