Grant Hart - Intolerance

Grant Hart - Intolerance - 1989

Grant Vernon Hart was an American musician, best known as the drummer and co-songwriter for the alternative rock and hardcore punk band Hüsker Dü. After the band's breakup in 1988, he formed the alternative rock trio Nova Mob, where he moved to vocals and guitar. His solo career became his main focus after the dissolution of Nova Mob in 1997.

As the co-songwriter of Hüsker Dü, Hart's songs (such as "The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill" and "Turn on the News") received praise from critics and contemporaries. His vocal style, in contrast to that of Hüsker Dü bandmate Bob Mould, had a more measured and melodic delivery. His choice of lyrical themes, which ranged from teenage alienation in "Standing by the Sea" and the depiction of a murder in "Diane," to playful story-telling in "Books About UFOs," helped to expand the subject matter of hardcore punk.

Grant Hart's first full-length solo album after the breakup of Hüsker Dü, 1989's Intolerance is an eclectic, sometimes disorienting mishmash of styles that surprisingly works more often than not. From the psychedelic tape frenzy and carnival organ of the opening "All of My Senses" onwards, Hart largely disavows his punk roots in favor of a variety of late-'60s styles, including the Blonde on Blonde pastiche (complete with caterwauling harmonica) "Now That You Know Me" and the sneering Van Morrison shuffle "You're the Victim," one of several songs that seem to touch on the acrimonious breakup of Hüsker Dü. The harrowing "The Main" is a piano-led, almost gospel-like first-person chronology of drug addiction, one of the most vivid and personal songs Hart has ever written, while the remake of "2541," his pained remembrance of the band's old rehearsal space from his debut EP, gives the previously acoustic song a dose of electric rock & roll energy that suits it just fine. It didn't get the press attention of Bob Mould's much slicker Workbook, out around the same time, but Intolerance is probably the better album.

Hart died on September 13, 2017 from liver cancer.

01. All Of My Senses
02. Now That You Know Me
03. Fanfare In D Major (Come, Come)
04. The Main
05. Twenty-Five Forty-One
06. Roller-Rink
07. You're The Victim
08. Anything
09. She Can See The Angels Coming
10. Reprise

Grant Hart - Vocals, All Instruments







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