I think when all is said and done, the work that I produced in this lifetime will more than repay the world for any inconvenience I’ve caused it. | | | | These important early years: Hüsker Dü's Greg Norton, Grant Hart and Bob Mould.
(Steve Hengstler/Numero Group) | | | | |  | “I think when all is said and done, the work that I produced in this lifetime will more than repay the world for any inconvenience I’ve caused it.”
|
| |
| | rantnrave:// GRANT HART saw through the clutter of life with his X-ray eyes and wrote plainspoken, direct songs about the shimmering objects and naked ideas he had thus set free. "If there's one thing that I can't explain, is why the world has to have so much pain." "Is it the sun that makes them so green? Those are the prettiest eyes I have ever seen." "I'd show you everywhere you're wrong but I'm never talking to you again." Heartful and artless. Open and shut (and open again). And wedded to melodies so huge, so catchy, so immediate that no amount of metallic guitar distortion, cloudy production or Hart's own primal screaming could keep them buried for more than a moment. That, at least, is the story of the six-or-seven-year acid trip during which Hart and his more angsty, passive-aggressive co-songwriter BOB MOULD were changing the sound and the emotional landscape of punk rock with HÜSKER DÜ. Hart's songs were the ones you hummed immediately and you remember 30 years later. Mould's were the ones that made you want to start a metal band or jump into a wrestling ring. And then, for a million reasons we don't have to get into, some tragic, some heartbreaking, some stupid, Hart went underground for the rest of his life, recording a handful of albums that few people heard even though the X-ray beauty and the melodic gift stayed strong (feel free to drop everything and listen to the bubblegum delirium of 1999's GOOD NEWS FOR MODERN MAN or the almost BOWIE-esque art-rock of 2013's THE ARGUMENT), while Mould turned his angst and his own immense talents into a serious career. They don't seem to have talked very much for most of that time. (A dozen-plus reasons why Hart may have been OK with that are sprinkled through this definitive interview.) But if you wanted to talk to Hart, all you had to do was say hi. Underground meant back to the way he always was, a punk-rock dude living a punk-rock life, offstage, onstage, sharing a beer with you, didn't matter. And, sure, being a little grouchy and bitter, too. The tributes and memories from those who knew him in his later years had the tears welling up Thursday. And then Mould's tribute. Waterfalls. RIP Grant Hart... Oh wait, I didn't mention "BOOKS ABOUT UFOS"... Oh also, he went to school with ex-MINNESOTA GOV. TIM PAWLENTY, and this is amazing... And finally: NPR MUSIC is streaming SAVAGE YOUNG DÜ, a deep overview of the Hüskers' pre-ZEN ARCADE years... Please please please let this speculation about MARTIN SHKRELI's WU-TANG CLAN album be right... KENDRICK LAMAR and ANTHONY "TOP DAWG" TIFFITH are top dawgs on BILLBOARD's Hip-Hop Power List... BLEACHERS turn off the power for MTV UNPLUGGED tonight... SAMPHA wins the MERCURY MUSIC PRIZE... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from FOO FIGHTERS (the world's most successful Grant Hart tribute band, and they know it), PROPHETS OF RAGE, OPEN MIKE EAGLE, ROSTAM BATMANGLIJ, MICHAEL MCDONALD, ARIEL PINK, GUCCI MANE, LIZZ WRIGHT, DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER, GARY NUMAN, HUNDRED WATERS, YUSUF/CAT STEVENS, RINGO STARR, SON LITTLE, EMILY HAINES, WYCLEF JEAN, COOL KIDS, DEER TICK, THE LONE BELLOW, BIG & RICH and LEE RANALDO... RIP HAL TULCHIN. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
|
|
 | Bloomberg |
| Was a man convicted of fraud misled about the most expensive record ever sold? | | |
|
 | The New Yorker |
| In Houston’s career twilight, when dew had turned to sweat, it was to her “black” voice and her black life that her instability was attributed. | | |
|
 | Mass Appeal |
|
 | Rolling Stone |
| "There was only one Grant Hart," writes Rob Sheffied, "in his songs, he turned himself into a lens and noticed things nobody else did." | | |
|
 | NPR Music |
| Show producers received a cease-and-desist notice from Universal Music Group and American Recordings telling them to stop using Cash's cover of the Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne song "I Won't Back Down." | | |
|
 | Vulture |
| In new music videos, the artists are claiming the role of objectified and objectifier simultaneously. | | |
|
 | Digiday |
| With a new head of video, Spotify is trying to determine what its video business will look like. One thing's for sure: music will be the focus. | | |
|
 | Billboard |
| For the first time, hip-hop now dominates every other genre, claiming a quarter of all music consumption. Billboard’s inaugural Hip-Hop Power list recognizes the 72 execs and innovators taking the culture higher -- none more so than Top Dawg Entertainment MVP Kendrick Lamar and founder/CEO Anthony “Top DAWG” Tiffith, who are redefining the boundaries of success in rap. | | |
|
 | Stereogum |
| The official 'This Is Us' soundtrack is is a mix of contemporary indie rock and familiar FM gold representing the TV show's two timelines, one in the present day and one in the late '70s and early '80s. But there's one slight outlier: lead actress Mandy Moore's new studio recording of Little Feat's "Willin'." | | |
|
 | City Pages |
| The melancholic first song on his first post-Hüsker Dü solo EP, also called "2541," exists somewhere between Velvet Underground-caliber shambling and faded psychedelic jangle, with needling acoustic riffs, an echoing vocal, and a surging chorus. | | |
|
 | A Scar No One Else Can See | Max Landis |
| A Scar No One Else Can See is an insane critical dive into the hidden pattern of themes that unites all of Carly Rae Jepsen's music. | | |
|
 | Bridge Ratings Media Research |
| Radio is not reflecting the streaming consumption patterns of its listeners. When labels and/or artists drop multiple tracks within a short period of time, radio struggles to properly expose that music to keep up with the audience consumption of those songs. | | |
|
| Stereogum |
| There comes a time in every adult human's life, should they be lucky enough to live that long, when they must conclude that youth culture is trash -- or at least it has become entirely indecipherable to anyone old enough to exist outside its bubble. | | |
|
| Rolling Stone |
| Music docs 'Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars' and 'Gaga: Five Feet Two' get snazzy premieres at Toronto Film Festivals -- our TIFF 2017 reviews. | | |
|
 | Dazed Digital |
| The Fall Out Boy bassist and emo icon talks longevity ahead of the release of the band’s seventh studio album "M A N I A." | | |
|
 | MTV News |
| The musician passed away following cancer complications -- but her work is eternally fearless. | | |
|
 | Noisey |
| Sorry but there are a bunch of music theory reasons why this song has dominated 2017. | | |
|
 | The Walrus |
| Canada's narrow cultural taxonomy excludes some of our best artists. | | |
|
 | Complex |
| Jason Mowatt initially created Trap Karaoke as a joke. Nowadays, it's anything but. | | |
|
 | A.V. Club |
| "If you look at the way things worked, on the first couple of albums there's a song of mine here and there. That just kind of grows until the final album. Then there's a showdown with Bob telling me, "You're not going to have half an album, ever, in this band." (Originally published July 26, 2000.) | | |
|
 | YouTube |
| | | | | | From "Grace," out today on Concord. |
| | |
|
|
| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
|
|
