A new box set collecting Husker Du live performances from 1985 will be released in the fall.
1985: The Miracle Year includes a full concert from the band’s hometown appearance at Minneapolis’ First Avenue on Jan. 30, 1985, and other tracks recorded during the band’s busiest year. The box will be released on Nov. 7.
You can hear nine songs from the Jan. 30, 1985, set at First Avenue below.
Listen to Husker Du Perform ‘The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill’ in 1985
Listen to Husker Du Perform ‘I Apologize’ in 1985
1985: The Miracle Year is being released by Numero Group, the label that issued the acclaimed 2017 box set Savage Young Du that compiled the band’s earliest demos, singles, outtakes and live tracks.
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The upcoming four-LP set comes from the punk trio’s most significant year. Following 1984’s breakthrough double album Zen Arcade, Husker Du released a pair of albums in 1985: January’s New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig in September.
Listen to Husker Du Perform ‘If I Told You’ in 1985
Listen to Husker Du Perform ‘Folklore’ in 1985
A year later, the band had moved on from indie label SST to the major Warner Bros., which released two Husker Du albums before the group broke up in 1988.
What’s on Husker Du’s ‘1985: The Miracle Year’ Box Set?
1985: The Miracle Year starts with a complete show performed two weeks after the release of New Day Rising. The Jan. 30 performance is being touted as “perhaps the highest fidelity recordings of the band’s lauded SST era.”
Listen to Husker Du Perform ‘Every Everything’ in 1985
Listen to Husker Du Perform ‘Makes No Sense at All’ in 1985
In the set list are songs from Zen Arcade, New Day Rising and the band’s cover of the Byrds‘ “Eight Miles High.” Also included is “Makes No Sense at All,” the single that wouldn’t be released until later in the year on Flip Your Wig.
The last two LPs collect an additional 20 songs from Husker Du’s 1985 tours, none repeated from the Minneapolis concert.
Listen to Husker Du Perform ‘Terms of Psychic Warfare’ in 1985
Listen to Husker Du Perform ‘Powerline’ in 1985
Listen to Husker Du Perform ‘Books About UFOs’ in 1985
You can see the track listing for Husker Du’s 1985: The Miracle Year below.
Husker Du, ‘1985: The Miracle Year’ Track Listing
Minnesota Miracle
SIDE A
1. New Day Rising
2. It’s Not Funny Anymore
3. Everything Falls Apart
4. The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill
5. I Apologize
6. If I Told You
7. Folklore
SIDE B
1. Every Everything
2. Makes No Sense At All
3. Terms Of Psychic Warfare
4. Powerline
5. Books About UFOs
6. Broken Home, Broken Heart
7. Diane
SIDE C
1. Hate Paper Doll
2. Green Eyes
3. Divide And Conquer
4. Pink Turns To Blue
5. Eight Miles High
SIDE D
1. Out On A Limb
2. Helter Skelter
3. Ticket To Ride
4. Love Is All Around
More Miracles
SIDE E
1. Don’t Want To Know If You’re Lonely
2. I Don’t Know For Sure
3. Hardly Getting Over It
4. Sorry Somehow
5. Eiffel Tower High
SIDE F
1. What’s Going On
2. Private Plane
3. Celebrated Summer
4. All Work And No Play
SIDE G
1. Keep Hanging On
2. Find Me
3. Flexible Flyer
4. Sunshine Superman
5. In A Free Land
6. Somewhere
SIDE H
1. Flip Your Wig
2. Never Talking To You Again
3. Chartered Trips
4. The Wit And The Wisdom
5. Misty Modern Days
Top 40 Albums of 1985
Classic rock veterans and fresh faces came together in a year of change.
Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci
