release date: Sep. 4, 1992
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,88]
producer: Bob Mould, Lou Giordano
label: Rykodisc / Creation - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "The Act We Act" (4 / 5) - 2. "A Good Idea" (4 / 5) - 3. "Changes" - 4. "Helpless" - 5. "Hoover Dam" - 7. "If I Can't Change Your Mind" (5 / 5) (video) (live on WFUV) - 9. "Slick" - 10. "Man on the Moon"
Studio debut album by the Bob Mould-led project Sugar, in early '92. In a sense it's kind of hard to musically pin down strong differences from e.g. Mould's second album Black Sheets of Rain (1990), which is very much to say the music he already made, but for the short period of time Sugar came to exist, the style was always alt. rock, indie pop, power pop with much less focus on the singer / songwriter and bond to folk rock elements you may attribute Mould's previous solo releases. All ten tracks is written between 1990-92 by Mould himself. Only two full albums and one ep were released under the name of Sugar; hence the second album, also known as F.U.E.L (1994), signals the end of this short-lived trio, but that only meant a new start for front figure Bob Mould.
Copper Blue is Mould's best-selling album to date and it generally harvested positive reviews. The album topped the music magazine NME's list "Album of the Year", and it's the second of just two featuring Bob Mould (Warehouse: Songs and Stories by Hüsker Dü being the first) to be enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".
Personally, I find it a difficult but not impossible choice to pick the best of the two full-length Sugar albums, as they both have individual strengths, but I simply prefer the '94 album. This is the first by Sugar, and it comes out as something quite fresh to demonstrate the bond between Hüsker Dü / Bob Mould and the whole grunge rock movement. On Candy Apple Grey (1986) and Warehouse: Songs and Stories Mould and Grant Hart's former band paved the way for a whole string of new American bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Mudhoney and many other, who all became bigger names but owns everything to a band named Hüsker Dü.
Copper Blue is nicely produced, it's strict and it contains a bunch of strong melodic rock songs fueled by Mould's enigmatic vocal and distorted guitar.
[ allmusic.com, NME 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]
