 Sugar Another smashing Sugar EP. Having long gotten rid of their actual albums, I find that my Sugar collection is simply 3 EPs. You know, that might be just enough, feeding my nostalgia without making me face reality. Will I ever again be "into" Sugar? Seriously doubt it. But by all means, I encourage everyone else to get into them. They fucking rocked, and though they was basically just a tarted-up Hüsker Dü minus any trace of Grant Hart, they were great enough that listening to them now actually serves to make the Foo Fighters look like a cover band. Was Sugar influential? Does anyone care besides the 30-something Bob Mould fans who still listen to Sugar and don't know that the world has since marched on? Who knows. This was the second EP released for "If I Can't Change Your Mind," easily the poppiest of Sugar's very poppy singles, and always a breath of fresh air. Three bonus tracks recorded for the BBC round out the disc: "The Slim" (great), a faster "If I Can't Change Your Mind" (that's how it really sounded), and my fave Sugar song, ironically the only non-Mould song they really did, bassist David Barbe's power-poppariffic "Where Diamonds Are Halos." I swear, if I ever end up in a band that critics pay attention to, I'll cover that song and make sure everyone knows that Sugar, for a time, was totally the shit. I can't believe time has advanced to where I am actually writing about stuff I used to love, from a vantage point of relative adulthood and/or supposed maturity. 90s nostalgia? Wow. Nowadays I lack the cloudy, wild recklessness that makes things so important when you're 20. I find fewer bands I will go out and eagerly snap up every CD single for. Sugar didn't change my life, nor did they save it, nor did they particularly give vent to any of my deepest early-20s desperation. What they did do was rock my sorry ass when it counted, and for that I genuinely thank them.
Review by Dillio Jonzun |