THE GOSPEL ACCORDIND TO BOB MOULD

With his venerated alt.rock bands Hüsker Dü and Sugar as well as his solo material, Bob Mould’s influence has stretched far and wide. Always one to wear his heart on his sleeve, lyrically speaking, he’s not one to shy away from the big subjects, as his most recent album Blue Hearts proves. A spectacular piece of work, it lashes out at the political right wing, social prejudice and evangelical hypocrisy. Chatting from his San Francisco home, in the week when the US election result is announced, he’s got a lifetime of wisdom to impart.

AMERICA IS PROBABLY EVEN MORE DIVIDED THAN IT APPEARS

Yesterday I started chasing down a piece of legislation that came into effect after the Second World War, called The Fairness Doctrine. It was put in place to give equal time to opposing views on television and in radio. In 1987 that got turned back by the Reagan [administration]. There’s a school of thought that that was where partisanship really took hold. And it does correspond with the rise of Fox network and a lot of the more divisive, more polarising media views that started in the nineties. That’s really where a lot of division in America was allowed to be amplified. And thirtysomething years later we have just suffered through another four years of a telegenic, evangelical-based Republican.

THE HISTORIANS WILL DECIDE TRUMP’S LEGACY

I have a feeling it’s going to be as terrible as anybody in the twenty-first