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The music and influence of the pioneering Minneapolis hardcore band H\u00fcsker D\u00fc <\/a>was investigated brilliantly in Michael Azerrad\u2019s 2001 book on the 80s alternative underground, Our Band Could Be Your Life. But for Bob Mould<\/a>, H\u00fcsker D\u00fc was his life \u2013 and going on the stories, tales of financial penury, addiction and interminable band squabbling, it was a pretty miserable existence<\/p>\n His work with Sugar \u2013 the power trio he formed in 1992, four years after H\u00fcsker D\u00fc\u2019s demise \u2013 feel like an attempt to wash away the angst of the post-punk years, to try on a sunny expression and see how it felt. And while Sugar were themselves short-lived, their music, particularly that collected on excellent debut album Copper Blue, sounded like salvation.<\/p>\n Copper Blue hit it big, selling hundreds of thousands of copies and scoring NME\u2019s 1992 Album of the Year. In part, this was down to timing. The alternative rock movement that H\u00fcsker D\u00fc helped usher in was booming, thanks to the stratospheric success of Nirvana<\/a>\u2019s Nevermind<\/a>. But Copper Blue also contains some of Mould\u2019s brightest, most brilliant writing.<\/p>\n