First it was The English Beat – now, Bob Mould’s power-pop outfit Sugar, whose discography is getting the expanded treatment starting next week, is seeing a dueling reissue campaign in both England and the United States. While Copper Blue, Beaster and File Under: Easy Listening are getting expanded CD/DVD issues from Edsel, Merge Records – for whom Mould will release a new album in the fall – will handle expansions of the albums a bit differently. All the DVD content on the U.S. reissues has been dropped, along with the BBC session tracks that featured on Copper…

While Bob Mould has gained rock immortality as one third of the criminally underrated alt-rock outfit Hüsker Dü, his work as frontman for alt-rockers Sugar in the 1990s deserves its own recognition. In May and June, the hard workers at Demon/Edsel will give Sugar its due in the form of expanded, remastered editions of their entire catalogue. After the split of Hüsker Dü in 1988, Mould locked himself away in a Minnesota farmhouse, attempting to write new material and purge himself of the substance addictions he had developed over the years. He succeeded…