Customer Reviews

File Under: Easy Listening

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sugar shot like a meteor across the musical sky. It burned bright and fast and not many saw it, but the few who did are destined to spend the rest of their days sharing their experience with anyone who will bother to listen. Such was the brief career of Sugar.

After the dynamic COPPER BLUE and the ferocious BEASTER, FILE UNDER: EASY LISTENING was a bit of a letdown. Nevertheless, it still has more than its fair share of classic Sugar songs including the poppy "Your Favorite Thing" (which borrows slightly from My Bloody Valentine's "Blown A Wish"), the singalong "Believe What You're Saying," the dramatic "Explode and Make Up," and the clever toetapper "Gee Angel." David Barbe steps up front (for better or worse) with "Company Book," which, if nothing else, did prove once and for all that Sugar was more than "Bob Mould and The Two Other Guys."

Ultimately, though, Sugar will be best remembered for COPPER BLUE and BEASTER and rightfully so. While FU:EL has plenty of pop, it has very little of the conviction and intensity that made those two albums so memorable. In the meteoric career of Sugar, FU:EL was little more than a vapor trail.

It's a penny! Well, that's a reason alone to buy this album, but that's beside the point. It's a good pop album with catchy songs from Bob Mould and his 90's band. Songs "Gee Angel", "Favorite Thing", "I Can't Help You Anymore", and the rest of the album are all solid rocking pop songs. If you like Husker Du or Mould's solo stuff and you don't own this. I don't know why. Get it.

While certainly not as good as "Copper Blue," "File Under: Easy Listening," nevertheless, stands up on its own. I enjoyed reading the fifteen prior reviews, because they're all over the place for what I consider to be an all-around solid album. Additionally, no one seems to agree with me that "Panama City Motel" is clearly the best track on the album, and as good as anything on "Copper Blue."

FU: EL consists of a number of good songs ("Gift," "Company Book," "Believe What You're Saying," and "Explode and Make Up"); one very good song ("Your Favorite Thing" -- elevated by that catchy guitar riff); and one great song (the aforementioned "Panama City Motel"). The album flows well, and is alot more accessible than the preceding "Beaster." As I've said with other bands I've already reviewed, I can't understand why Mould would disband Sugar at this point, after only two albums and an E.P. (and a "B-Sides" album, which doesn't really count), and go solo with largely inferior releases.

I wanted to talk about two songs. First, "Company Book" is the only David Barbe offering for the band (I understand the B-Sides album has others). Although not as good a songwriter or singer as bandmate Mould (and, indeed, most of the previous reviewers don't like this song), I still think Barbe has something to offer, and I would have liked to hear other Barbe songs on future albums that were not to be. In sparse lyrics, Barbe tells of the conformist life of a long-time "company man," with the concluding stanza: "In the epilogue the company man/ Takes his company life with his company hands/ In his revelation he decrees/ Extinction of faceless robots like himself/ Spawned from the company book." Not bad.

As I've mentioned, I feel "Panama City Motel" ranks among the best of Sugar's offering. Like the superb "Hoover Dam" (which, if I had to choose, is my favorite song on "Copper Blue"), the story within the song is told from the perspective of a tourist, this time one without much money in his pocket. Mould's harmonies with himself and acoustic guitar playing were never better. I just love the refrain every time I hear it, about bargaining for a cheap hotel room: "But senor I only have ten dollars/ Can't you give me a room for the night?/ We argue about currency and then/ He says I can stay for the night/ In this Panama City Motel/ I am out on the freeway again." Almost a vignette as opposed a rock song.

Please Sugar, re-unite!

Very solid, hard rocking, but not unsubtle cd. Gee Angel is a great song. If you can't crank this song in your car, you should just stick to Geritol and AM radio. Mould's second best song, next to HD's "Don't want to know if you are lonely"

"File Under Easy Listening" is a disappointment after the great Sugar debut, "Copper Blue." Signs were already apparant that leader Bob Mould was becoming bored with his latest power trio. "Believe What You're Saying" and "Your Favorite Thing" are two fine singles worthy of the first album, but the rest of the material just doesn't hold up. In fact, much of it sounds similar to the aural sludge Mould dredges up on the lesser tracks from his first two solo albums, "Workbook" and "Black Sheets of Rain." Mould can be a great songwriter, but only when he is fully engaged.

Sugar is basically made up of ex-Husker Du guitar and vocalist Bob Mould. Sugar's "File Under: Easy Listening" is a pretty intense record musically - it's essentially just noisy hard rockin' guitars that more or less overshadow the vocals. You can still hear the singer, but you definitely will have no idea what he's saying a good amount of the time. Even though the album is essentially just a bunch of noise, you can still pick out a great sense of melody, rhythm and beat here. I don't have any idea who else to compare Sugar too, so that's a good thing I suppose. I honestly have no idea what else to say here except that most of the songs sound pretty similar to one another. The standout tracks are easily "Gee Angel" and "Your Favorite Thing" as they have "hit" written all over them, though every song here is very good. It's not a classic, but it comes close (I would argue that it's not because all the songs sound relatively similar, and the singer's voice isn't perfect). All in all, however, this is still highly recommended!

Highlights include:
the entire album!

F.U.E.L. is playing as I'm typing this. Anyways, this CD is almost as good as the previous release ("Copper Blue"). More of the same crunchy, catchy, power pop-driven melodies! Sugar broke up, right? Such a shame. The band should've gotten more attention. Best tracks: "Your Favorite Thing", "What You Want It To Be", "Gee Angel", "Can't Help You Anymore". Now I'm SERIOUSLY thinking of buying some of Bob's solo stuff...

If you like crashing guitars, catchy hooks and lyrics that range from fun to the bitingly satirical, then this is the album for you! I never get tired of hearing "Gee Angel".

Nothing sums up FU:EL better than critic Robert Christgau's review, which reads in part: "Remember power pop? Now add brains and muscles." Most fans prefer Sugar's first album, "Copper Blue," and I suppose I do too, but not by much. Nobody combines high-energy, LOUD riffage with indelible tunes better than Mould, and this pretty much ranks with his best work.

Between solo albums, Bob Mould made a trilogy under the name Sugar (not counting the extra disc of B sides). "File Under Easy Listening" is the third, and you can tell. It's more polished than the previous albums, but it has less energy. He's finally figured out how to write and record great rock songs, but he's gotten bored with the whole process.

When he's on, he's really on. Bob Mould is able to turn distortion and feedback into melody with so little effort, you don't always notice what he's doing. The first track, Gift, is full of blistering guitar solos, but it's as catchy as the Beatles.

The rest of the album follows the same pattern, turning guitar tones into perfect pop songs. Mould has a knack for writing back-biting lyrics, too, reflecting on burnt-out relationships and betrayal. He sings sweetly, but you can tell he's not happy.

If every song was as good as Panama City Hotel, Granny Cool, and Gee Angel, this would be a five-star album. But too many songs are based on a single hook . . . and too many are played on acoustic guitar.

Like his fellow songwriter from Minneapolis, Paul Westerberg, Bob Mould delivers less than he promises. Maybe some day he'll make that perfect rock album. Until then, this will have to do.