Sugar (16 and Over)

Having already placed his indelible mark on the future direction of rock with Hüsker Dü, Bob Mould teamed with bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis to found Sugar in late 1991, making their live debut early the next year at Athens, GA’s famed 40 Watt Club. Named by NME as its 1992 “Album of the Year,” Sugar’s now-classic debut album, Copper Blue, immediately proved a sensation, earning worldwide acclaim and landmark status for the melodic strength and intensely cathartic popcraft of songs like “A Good Idea,” “Helpless,” and the alternative rock radio hit and MTV favorite, “If I Can’t Change Your Mind.” The trio quickly found themselves performing on increasingly larger stages, including a legendary show-stealing set at London’s Great X-pectations Festival in Finsbury Park. With the wind at their back, Sugar unleashed Beaster in 1993, making a momentous debut at #3 on the UK’s Official Albums Chart as well as at #4 on Billboard’s “Heatseekers” chart in the US. Though recorded during the same sessions that yielded Copper Blue, the six-song mini-album evinced a more visceral energy and dark melancholy than its predecessor, highlighted by such pulverizing expressions of sacrilegious fury as “Judas Cradle” and “JC Auto.” 1994’s second full-length LP, File Under: Easy Listening once again made an explosive arrival among the top 10 on the UK Official Albums Chart, this time landing in the upper reaches of the overall Billboard 200. The album saw Sugar pushing boundaries yet again on songs like the country-flavored “Believe What You’re Saying” and the incendiary “Gee Angel,” tackling a wider range of musical approaches without sacrificing their signature intensity and unrestrained power. Despite their successes, Sugar called it a day following a Japanese tour in early 1995. A series of live recordings, reissues, and anthologies served to magnify the band’s legacy over the three decades since, confirming Sugar as incontrovertible masters of high-volume…