Song of the Day: Sugar, "If I Can't Change Your Mind"

Sugar's Copper Blue is having its best year ever. A sweet 20th anniversary reissue and a tribute tour from frontman Bob Mould, in which he's playing the album front to back, are both making the case that his penchant for the supermelodic didn't stop with Hüsker Dü. Watching him perform Copper Blue last Friday, much of it sounded as strong as his renditions of "Something I Learned Today, "I Apologize" and "Makes No Sense at All."

Is there anyone who likes rock music who can dislike this song?



Copper Blue is often thought of as Mould's stab at commercial success. Released post-Nevermind, when alternative rock had taken over the airwaves and Mould was maturing into a more tuneful and less belligerent songwriter, it almost seems surprising that it didn't go gold. But if Sugar can't change your mind...

Five Songs for Neil Armstrong that aren't R.E.M.'s "Man on the Moon"

In Flames, "Moonshield"

What is the Moonshield? And why must one reach for it? NASA, In Flames is concerned about you.



Iron Maiden, "Moonchild"

Neil had already made it and returned by the time Maiden dropped Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, but Maiden preferred to honor earth's orbiter with Aleister Crowley characters.



Smashing Pumpkins, "Tonight, Tonight"

In his best years, Billy Corgan knew more about what to do with a high budget than any other alternative rocker. This song is about Chicago, but the video is a creative re-imagining of Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon.



Sugar, "Man on the Moon"

2012 is a great year for Copper Blue, now enjoying a three-disc reissue and getting played in its entirety on Bob Mould's current tour. Check it out as one of the first glimpses that the guitarist from Hüsker Dü would get poppy enough to write the Daily Show theme.



Ernie, "I Don't Want to Live on the  Moon"

I don't know many songs about rainbows, but there are plenty about the moon. None more transcendent than this one.