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Music

You Can Now Listen to Pristine Remixes of Hüsker Dü's Early Songs

Dü you want to stream the three-disc collection now? Of course you dü.

Husker Dü's fusion of hardcore punk intensity and pop yearning was so advanced it took bands about a decade or two to fully catch up (props to Green Day for essentially streamlining 1984's Zen Arcade to make American Idiot). The trio, long broken up, has never given their music the cushy reissue treatment that contemporaries like the Replacements got, maybe because their classic recordings kinda sounded like boiled ass and woodchips (it was the 80s, low budget really meant low budget).

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This is why Savage Young Dü, a new compilation of Husker Dü's early work from 1979 to 1982, is really cool. As the accompanying NPR feature says, it's remixed from the original source material, a process that apparently took seven years and much tracking down of old, unreleased masters and whatnot. What's left is worth the effort, three discs that show the band in the process of hashing out their formative influences and beginning to take the creative leaps that would make them into one of the decade's best rock bands. You can stream disc one of Savage Young Dü here, disc two here, and disc three here, all via NPR.

Phil is a Noisey staff writer. He's on Twitter.