July’s featured artist, Soul Asylum, will be returning to the music scene with their first studio album in eight years, The Silver Lining. The band was known for their garage alt-rock sound in the '80s and '90s, and in those first ten years they went from being a local Minneapolis punk band to platinum selling artists. The next decade found them gaining even more acclaim in the form of Grammy nominations and a Grammy win for the song “Runaway Train” in 1994. They released ten previous albums.
Their first commercial release came in 1984. Say What You Will, Clarence...Karl Sold the Truck was recorded eight years before they hit the mainstream, but garnered a lot of college airplay. It is the album that is truest to that original punk sound the band started with. The album was reissued on CD in 1991.
You start to see the transition in sound on their 1986 release Made to Be Broken. Best described as an indie rock album, it contains “Tied To The Tracks” and “Can’t Go Back,” two songs that are definitive examples of where their sound was headed. This album was also reissued on CD in 1991.
Say What You Will and Made to Be Broken were recorded in those early years when the band was still developing its sound and before mainstream public and radio took notice. Later this month we’ll take a closer look at the remaining eight albums in the Soul Asylum discography.
Karl Mueller, one of the founding members and bassist for the trio passed away from throat cancer in June of 2005 while working on The Silver Lining. Six of the tracks were the last he worked on and serve as a memorial to him and his part in the sound of Soul Asylum.
Regarding the CD, Dan Murphy was quoted in the press release as saying, “I’m really proud of this record. It’s a guitar record and it was really fun to record. It will always remind me of Karl when I listen to it. He was really sick, but still pulled through and finished it in Soul Asylum fashion.”
Article comments
1 - A.L. Harper
Great article Connie! Looking forward to the new album.
2 - Connie Phillips
Thanks, A. L. I'm pretty excited about featuring this band this month. There are a lot of great things happening with them to share.
3 - Rebecca
I have a review of the new album coming early this week. It's been very interesting to listen to and I think I'll have some interesting things to share about it.
4 - Connie Phillips
Great Rebecca. I look forward to getting your perspective on the album. I've been listening to it now for a few days and should have my review soon.
5 - Scott Butki
I always saw Soul Asylum as more of a cheap imitation of the Replacements
than their own band and the Replacements singer has made similar remarks. If I like anything
by S.A. it's their earlier work.