File Under: Easy Listening

This is the audiophile review.First off, the original version was released on Rykodisc in 1994. The remastered version was released on Merge Records in 2012. The Remaster comes with b-sides, a live disc from 1994 in Minneapolis and an excellent booklet with lyrics, pics and interviews with all three guys.The sound.I did an A/B comparison using a Philips dual disc recorder with record level meters.The remastered version is night and day compared to the original. The volume is louder. There is more and better bass. The drums are full. Guitar soundstage is full, wide and huge. Guitar has a 3D sound. It's more stereo like compared to the "wall of sound" presented on the original. There is so much more detail. I heard guitar parts I had never heard before. It's like listening to the CD vs the radio. The original sounds compressed and flat and like it was an album transfered to CD vs mastered on CD.The remastered version is exciting, live, raw, electric, dynamic and full sounding compared to original. And if that didn't convince you, the b-sides and live disc should.

It was already a classic, but the remastering is like a perfect restoration of a museum-quality work painting; it's cleaner, a bit louder (but not in the loudness war fashion!), it's the way Mould intended, as he stated in the liner notes. What Mould's done with the Sugar albums and what Corgan's done with the Pumpkins' catalog are how albums should be remastered; subtle re-balancing and cleaning up here, tweaking and equalizing there. Compared to the Nevermind "remaster disaster," these are works of art. Well, that's not saying much, but you get the idea.As far as the original album goes, like I said, it was already one of my favorites from the era I grew up in, and the b-sides are solid (I can see where Mould says including them as the second half instead would've made the album more like Copper Blue) and also sound better than their appearance on the B-Sides album. Speaking of, the inclusion of the concert album from the original production run of that album is just icing on the cake, especially at the price. I never heard the original version, so I can't say if this, too, was remastered, but it sounds great and is worth the price alone ($11.99 when I bought it).Whether or not you have this album already, and have any love for 80s/90s alternative music, pick up the remaster. It's worth it. It's too bad more artists don't take this much time and care with their reissues.

Sugar's FILE UNDER EASY LISTENING is a fine CD, with plenty of good songs.You probably know Bob Mould from his days co-fronting the legendary Husker Du. He went on to make some solo records, then he worked in SUGAR. Sugar made an album entitled Copper Blue, then they made this little gem.In a nutshell, Sugar are noisy but very tuneful post-punk pop music. Bob Mould's music was always marked by sharp songwriting and rough production. The production on FU:EL is a bit tighter than what Husker Du had, and the songs sound about as much like Pixies as they do Husker Du, but the magic is still there."I Can't Believe What You're Saying" is a poppy little song, easy to sing along to, with a catchy chorus. It almost sounds like "Sugar Unplugged" compared to the rest of the songs.Most of the other songs on the album tend towards noisy but tuneful rock. "Panama City Motel" strikes a chord with anyone who has spent a night in a foreign city, feeling homesick. "Company Book" has a different feeling altogether; I think it may have been written by one of the other members of Sugar. My favorite song is called "What You Want It To Be," which is heavier and more repetitive than the rest of the songs on this record.All the songs on this CD do NOT sound the same. There's quite a bit of diversity here; I haven't listened to the CD in months, and I can distinctly recall the melodies of each of these songs I've mentioned.Most of the songs here are strong. There is only one I don't like. If you like noisy 90s pop music with strong songwriting, don't overlook FILE UNDER: EASY LISTENING. I think it's an essential purchase.ken32

Excellent album and this reissue is well worth the money. The second live disc is well recorded and would be a worthy release on its own.

Sugar is basically made up of ex-Husker Du guitar and vocalist Bob Mould. Sugar's "File Under: Easy Listening" is a pretty intense record musically - it's essentially just noisy hard rockin' guitars that more or less overshadow the vocals. You can still hear the singer, but you definitely will have no idea what he's saying a good amount of the time. Even though the album is essentially just a bunch of noise, you can still pick out a great sense of melody, rhythm and beat here. I don't have any idea who else to compare Sugar too, so that's a good thing I suppose. I honestly have no idea what else to say here except that most of the songs sound pretty similar to one another. The standout tracks are easily "Gee Angel" and "Your Favorite Thing" as they have "hit" written all over them, though every song here is very good. It's not a classic, but it comes close (I would argue that it's not because all the songs sound relatively similar, and the singer's voice isn't perfect). All in all, however, this is still highly recommended!Highlights include:the entire album!

This may deserve five stars except there are others more recent that may make this album look less refined.

This re-master really improves the sound quality of all the songs on FU:EL. The B-sides alone are a great album and if they had been incorporated into the original FUEL release it might be one of my top 5 favorite albums of all time. Definitely a must buy.

If you like the folk music that passes as rock today (looking at you Mumford and Sons) you will probably not like this album. Well you might in some ironic way that I will never understand, because I was not there.It's Bob Mould rocking out, it's a good thing.

And so the final Sugar album is remastered and follows Copper Blue and Beaster's repackaging. Following those albums was always going to be an issue and at the time this felt like a let down after the sweetness of Copper Blue and the bitter angst of Beaster. So its actually nice to revisit this on its own merits.File Under Easy Listening (shortened to FUEL at the time and since) isn't as good as those albums. At times when listening again its hard to pinpoint exactly why. Gift starts off proceedings in fine style with a track that could have been on Copper Blue (Bob Mould still plays it live). Its a tour de force of guitar and grunge. Company Book isn't quite the dirge it could be and is David Barbe on vocals. On the remaster it somehow comes out better than I remember it. Your Favourite Thing is the first single and it rocked along nicely enough with great melodies and sounded almost power pop (ok not just almost). The next two tracks, What You Want It To Be - guitar driven pop again but never hitting the heights really and Gee Angel - a single and a good track at that round off side one. Yes side one...you read that right because this was definitely of the era (and read the liner notes and Bob's book for more details) where LP's were still about and bands split their albums into sides. Side One of this is a solid offering. Side two feels different. - confirmed by the liner notes. This was mainly acoustically led tracks like Panama City Motel, Believe What You Are Saying and Can't Help You Anymore. They feel almost lightweight and throwaway (with one huge exception which I will come to shortly). If they were ordered differently or if, as Bob alludes to in the liner notes, some tracks were replaced with some of the more rockier B sides then this might have been a five star album. However, it is only really a four star album for these reasons. It never hits the heights of Copper Blue as a pop record and is nowhere near as dark and menacing as Beaster. Its a piece by itself though and I know some fans listen to this a lot, its certainly easier to listen to than Beaster. For me its a great record. Its not up there with the other offerings. However, it does finish on an absolute killer track - Explode and Make Up. Yes this is acoustic and yes this is raw. Its almost as hard a track to listen to as the Beaster stuff as it just is Bob laying his soul on the line (as he says in the lyrics). It was a hell of a note to finish proceedings (and to all intents and purposes the bands recorded work) on.I keep mentioning those liner notes and they are included in this package. They cover the albums difficult making and also the bands break up. There is a second CD which is a live one. It was included as a bonus CD on the Besides collection of...err..well B Sides. Its as good a live recording you will hear of the band (although not containing a single track of Beaster I might add). The DVD contains the three promo videos (extremely forgettable), an MTV spot with interviews (short and worth a watch) and a live acoustic version of Believe What You Are Saying with Bob and Lou Barlow - good version. There are also five B Sides included on the first disk. All of which are very good and leave you with a mixed feeling of what if...what if they were included.Overall the package warrants five stars for the package. The live album is really good and the album itself might be four stars. But the overall remastering (seems to have added something here I think), live CD, liner notes and B sides make this worthwhile (the DVD I could probably lived without if I am honest). This album though suffered from comparisons to its predecessors. Take it on its own merits and its a very good album and worth revisiting. I think it will be on heavier rotation for me now.

Sugar's final album deserves a fresh listen, and this remaster provides the perfect opportunity. This is admittedly an album of two halves, a louder "Copper Blue"-like first half giving way to a more reflective second, but after listening to the album for the first time in a few years I've realised it is a lot better than I remembered.It opens brilliantly with "Gift", a "Copper Blue"-esque track complete with guitars that would have sounded at home on "Beaster", one of Sugar's best songs in my opinion. This is followed by "Company Book", written and sung by David Barbe (Sugar's bass player) and although his voice is weaker than Mould's it is an enjoyable if slight song. The album's first single, "Your Favourite Thing", comes next, similar in sound to "Copper Blue"'s "If I Can't Change Your Mind", and it sounds as good as it always did. I've always liked "What You Want It To Be", a song that to my ears sounds a little like Bowie's "Heroes", and the final track on the first half of the record, "Gee Angel" is an enjoyable fast rock track, hewn from the same stuff as "Fortune Teller". The second half is quieter on the whole but still sounds great, and personally I love "Panama City Hotel", "Can't Help You Anymore" and the phenomenal "Explode And Make Up", the only weak(ish) tracks being the almost ballad-like "Believe What You're Saying" and the potential filler of "Granny Cool". When I first heard the album when it was originally released I thought the second half was almost acoustic, even country & western sounding, but it is more electric than I remembered, and when I played the remastered version I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It has aged well.The rest of the package consists of a CD and a DVD. As with "Copper Blue" the album is followed by its B-sides ("And You Tell Me", "Mind Is An Island" and "In The Eyes Of My Friends" are my personal highlights here), and the second disk is a live set, however if you previously bought the "Besides" compilation the live CD is identical to the second disk from that collection, and the B-sides are also the same. The DVD contains a few (not very good) videos and some TV interviews - worth a look but nothing remarkable. Once again though the best part for me was the booklet which contains a lengthy interview with the band and some of the other key players and makes for fascinating reading.All in all it is a fitting swansong to a tremendous band who weren't around for long enough. Not as good as "Beaster" or "Copper Blue" admittedly, but still streets ahead of many.

Bob Mould formed this band post Husker Du and brought his pop sensibilities to hard rock. Great original sound bringing screaming guitars to the forefront of modern rock.

Grading is for vinyl quality and not musical content! I’ve never really felt the need to grumble about any record that I have had delivered before as I can put up with the odd pop here or there, it’s part of the vinyl experience after all. However, this clear vinyl 180G pressing is awful with severe crackling throughout the first tracks on both sides, (there appear to be small bubbles in the vinyl. The volume also becomes muffled and drops on side 2. I’ve ordered another copy, so fingers crossed.

Excellent

If you listen to this album objectively in 2012 it becomes clear that this is Sugar's best album. I really like this album. This will come back into fashion. There will be an American Indie late 80s early 90s revival some time soon and Bob Mould is the Grungefather.

Questo è il secondo ed ultimo album degli Sugar di Bob Mould, ex Husker Du ma anche autore nel frattempo di vari lavori solisti, prima e dopo l'esperienza con questa power band.Uscito in piena epoca grunge, quindi al momento giusto, e in mezzo a tanti gruppi indie che proprio al trio di Minneapolis erano debitori. Forse un passo indietro rispetto al brillante album d'esordio "Copper Blue" e al successivo minilp "Beaster", ma ascoltare la voce di Mould è sempre una gioia per gli orecchi e per il cuore.

Album que j'avais découvert par pur hasard dans les rayons d'une médiathèque... A l'époque, j'avoue avoir accroché juste un peu mais il faut dire qu'il faisait face alors aux Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Metallica et Foo Fighters (entre autres), ce qui ne lui laissait que peu de chance. Mais à le ré-écouter, il y a du bon et pour le prix de cette version deluxe, il serait dommage de ne pas refaire un pas vers cet album.Le son a gagner en définition avec cette version remasterisée. Beaucoup d'ajout en B-sides et Live qui complètent bien l'album.Non vraiment si on a aimé le son "grunge/rock alt." de la première moitié des 90s, il faut tenter la découverte de Sugar et du chant de Bob Mould.

OK, needs getting used to.

Came on time a good second album!

Great cd, thanks

リマスター盤が出るのを待っていた。曲が素晴らしい。メロディのきれいさ、ギターのザクザク感、抜けのいいサウンド、何もかもが自分の好みにぴったりだった。前作に比べ、さらにメロディは充実し、音もカチっとまとまりが出た。５００万枚くらい売れてもおかしくはない内容なのだが、そこそこ売れただけだったな。何でこれ聴かないのかな。素晴らしく、素晴らしい。