Annotated Discography
[Last update 12 Feb 2006]
Disclaimers, caveats, limitations:
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Any errors are mine. Corrections, additions are welcome (email please).
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All commercial recordings are (or were) available on vinyl, except The 7
Inch Wonders of the World (cassette and CD), Barefoot And Pregnant,
Kitten, and the cassette magazines (cassette only). All SST, WB, Virgin
and Ryko LPs are available on cassette and CD. The two SST 7" singles have
been released as separate CD3s (out of print for years, available again briefly
inthe mid-90s) and reissued together on a single 5" CD. All Of My
Senses and 2541 were also available on CD3, the latter also briefly
rereleased in that format. See A Little Light, 2541 and
Quizas were also released as cassingles. Copper Blue has been
released on MD.
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It's appropriate to distinguish among bootlegs, concert tapes and
miscellaneous other unreleased material. The bootleg section lists only
bootleg vinyl and CDs. The concert tape section lists items known to be
available in trading circles. The advent of CDRs has blurred the definition
of "bootleg" even more; I've listed a couple of these that have clearly been
packaged for sale. There's a separate section listing other stuff
floating around on cassettes (demos, outtakes, whatnot). A few of the
concert tapes can be found in non-mall retail stores or at record shows. The
Hüsker Dü trading "network" appears to be of modest scope, and
shrinking. I'm always pleased to receive additional information or establish
new contacts.
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Concert/bootleg recording dates and venues are based on the best info
available, per my judgment. I make no sweeping claims of accuracy and
welcome corrections. Often the results rerepresent the
research efforts of several people, all (I hope) of whom are thanked in the
acknowledgements section below.
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Bootleg track lists reflect as-heard recording contents, not claims made
in package copy (an unreliable indicator).
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Bootleg/concert recording quality evaluations are strictly subjective.
I grudgingly came to accept that these things cannot fairly be judged by
the same standards as studio recordings. Nonetheless, they almost all sound
pretty bad to me. I did most of the cassette ratings back in the 80s, and if
I had it to do over again, nothing would be rated higher than B. A general
rule seems to be: the thrashier the material, the poorer the result, even
for soundboard recordings. More bad news: recordings made on magnetic media
degrade with time. Some of my tapes that sounded okay 10 years ago have lost
some high end; I've slowly been transferring the more important stuff to CDR,
but it's a project that will probably take more years than I have left.
Degradation of video tapes is even more noticeable.
- Anyway, here's a rough idea of the gradings employed:
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Only works on which band members actually perform are listed. (Bob Mould
and to a lesser extent Grant Hart have dabbled in record production on
occasion. Bob Mould's SOL record label released several 7" singles between
late 1989 and early 1990, and several more between fall 1992 and 1994.)
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Within each category, titles are listed more or less in chronological order
(by recording date for bootlegs and concert tapes, release date for
everything else).
- Breakdown of categories is given by the links below:
Section 2--Guest Appearances
Section 3--Bootleg Vinyl and CDs
Section 4--Demos, Outtakes, Rehearsals
Section 5--Live Audio Recordings
Section 6--Record Company Promo/DJ Material
Section 7--Giveaways, Miscellaneous
Section 8--Prerecorded Radio Shows
Section 10--Interviews
Section 11--Commercial Video
Section 12--Promo Video
Section 13--TV Appearances
Section 14--Live Video Tapes
Section 15--Covers, Tributes
Section 16--Archived Web Recordings, Cybercasts