Its flawed, slightly too long and the audio fidelity is scratchy and staticky, but its those flaws that give it the greater impact. Its a dark brooding masterpiece of existential angst the best ever put to music, its grunge before grunge became a book of clichés. Its cerebral with jagged hooks, its Rage to last a lifetime.


Top 5 tracks

Never Talking to you again
Standing By The Sea
Pink Turns To Blue
Whatever
Turn On The News

The seminal and almost legendary 'Zen Arcade' appears to have taken on a life of its own over the years but its not the panacea many claim it is

For starters its too long coming in at 70 minutes , the middle portion particularly becomes a slog as quite a few tracks being blurring into one

Secondly as a concept album it actually doesn't work . Supposedly telling the tale of a boy who leaves a broken home only to find the outside world is no better , this narrative thread is impossible to follow bar a few slices here and there

Thirdly the track listing has too many ho hum moments with tracks such as "Chartered Trips" , "Dreams Reoccurring" later repeated plus 13 minutes , "Indecision Time" , "Pride" and "Somewhere" as examples

Yet there are some gems to be mined within Zen , I can recommend Harts "Never Talking To You Again" , the weird but good "Hare Krsna" instrumental , the powerful "Standing By The Sea" , the 'Candy Apple Grey' - ish "Pink Turns To Blue" and twin closer's the excellent "Turn On The News" with cool monkey sounds and the full 14 minute "Reoccurring Dream "

Overall I find 'Zen Arcade' better than good but far from great

60/100

R.I.P. Grant Hart. Thank you for this masterpiece that made my youth better.

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Zen Arcade brings together two voices--a screaming voice in Bob Mould and a a warmer, more yearning one in Grant Hart--to tell vignettes of twentysomething white Minnesotan masculinity, doing so mostly in a loud three-piece rock format. There's a fourteen-minute instrumental, a short piano instrumental, a song with percussion swirls and general noise underscoring a reference to Hare Krishna's chanting practices, a frenetic acoustic number, and other points of variation. But mostly it's that three-piece arrangement, with Mould's guitar often a sheet of blazing noise that feels like a corrugated aluminum wall shattering in your face, other times a queasy backward masked swirl; Norton's bass skipping along and digging deep, standing out just enough to matter; and Hart galloping and crashing behind his drum kit. This is a band still chasing the land speed record that was the title of their first release, but with the added maturity shown in a greater sense of melody and purpose. A great rock band finding its authentic voice.

Some really great stuff and some really OK to bad stuff. Kinda wish it was condensed down to 10 best songs, but that's totally against the punk mentality. Probably the most experimental punk record I've heard (cause I've heard like 10... hehe).

Very good albums!

Favorite tracks: Something I Learned Today, Broken Home, Broken Heart, Never Talking To You Again, The Biggest Lie, Standing By The Sea, Turn On The News

A-
7.5

A sprawling record the size and depth of life itself in the mode of brainy punk. Spawned a generation of alt-people. Leans too far in no direction, with tracts of rage giving way to gorgeous pop songs, finalizing with a fury of guitar noise.

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Because, Timtooky, it's a little more cerebral than your beloved Toy Dolls LP. I hope you didn't read that it was a concept album and were expecting another Dark Side...

And yes, having looked at your chart, your music taste is disastrous. Maybe giving this album more than 3 minutes would help address that (and starting with Turn On The News rather than Dreams Recurring). Otherwise it's Europe LPs and sodding Life is Live by Opus until you shuffle off, I'm afraid.