“Pink Turns to Blue”, Hüsker Dü

This way: Pink Turns to Blue

This great song from my one of my all time fav bands, and all time fav albums. It just doesn't get much better than this. 

By 1983, the members of Hüsker Dü wanted to create music outside of the confines and restrictions of hardcore. In an interview with Matter in 1983, Mould told interviewer Steve Albini, "We're going to try to do something bigger than anything like rock & roll and the whole puny touring band idea. I don't know what it's going to be, we have to work that out, but it's going to go beyond the whole idea of 'punk rock' or whatever."

The following year, Hüsker Dü recorded the double album Zen Arcade in 45 hours for the cost of $3,200. Zen Arcade is a concept album following a boy who leaves home to face a harsh and unforgiving world. Its artistic and conceptual ambitions were a great stretch given the purist sentiment then prevalent in U.S. punk rock. Zen Arcade received critical praise and significant mainstream music press attention, ending up on several year-end best-of lists. It also helped expand the band's audience beyond the punk community. In his review for Rolling Stone, David Fricke described Zen Arcade as "the closest hardcore will ever get to an opera ... a kind of thrash Quadrophenia."

[Spotify]  Pink Turns to Blue