Bob Mould's Second Weirdest Record

I had my first exposure to Bob Mould back in the early '90s when I heard the first Sugar record. Since then, I've picked up as many of his albums as I can. I've seen him in concert three times, with a fourth time forthcoming. Needless to say, I'm a fan.

I've always thought Bob had a good "pop" sensibility which he defused by burying his melodies under layers of loud, loud guitar. (Is pop sensibility a bad thing? Not really. Listen to Nirvana's Nevermind. But then listen to an Avril Lavigne album and try to tell me it's a good thing.) He knows how to write a catchy tune, but all the cacophony and his somewhat underground status has kept him from any mainstream success.

Now, Bob's a kinda weird guy. After years of hard rock, he completely gave up performing with a band and only played solo acoustic. For a while, he moonlighted as a storyline writer for the WWF.

A couple of years ago, Bob decided to get back together with a band and put out Body of Song, a return to his rock roots. And now, he has followed it up with...well, he followed it up all right.

I'll say this about Bob's new record, District Line: if he were to write and produce a record for Kelly Clarkson, it would be this. It's an album of love songs, full of synthesizers, modulated vocals, and catchy melodies. As I mentioned before, if this record were put out by a namebrand pop singer, it would be a smash hit. But, as it stands, it's a collection of Bob Mould love songs, which really doesn't interest anyone. (Also, Bob is openly gay, so I'm assuming most of these songs were written about men, which may drive off some listeners.) It's a strange record, but there's enough "old" Bob on it to make it worth a listen.

All that being said, this record only ranks second on the strangeness scale in Bob Mould's discography. It would be #1 if Bob hadn't released Modulate, which, of all things, was a techno record.

Hopefully, he never puts out another one of those.