It’s so hard to say what makes music hard.
Music that’s really meaningful or intense is “heavy,” like John Lennon’s “Mother” or Radiohead’s “Mikamatosis.”
But usually heavy refers to the volume of the beat, because most people think that many offshoots of heavy metal, like grindcore, is what heavy is.
Well, music can be difficult, it just is.
It has been said that music is so hard to explain because it is so easy to understand.
My go-to song when I want to hear a “song” that’s really heavy: “In The Meantime,” by Helmet.
There is heavier music than that, but after a certain point I can’t hear the song anymore.
Harder than that all I can say is if the drummer uses a hard crash as a ride.
But as far as a sheer wall of noise goes, I say the hardest song is “Weasels Ripped My Flesh,” by Frank Zappa.
It’s so heavy I can hardly believe it even exists, let alone that Frankie enjoyed it.
But then Zappa also wrote “Civilization,” which I believe is the most complicated piece of music out there.
The only other piece of music I know of that is in this league is John Zorn’s Kristallnacht album.
Although only parts of this album are heavy, or maybe heavier than ‘Weasels…’ Wikipedia describes it as ‘ranging from fairly conventional roots music to extreme almost industrial chaos…’ Although I can’t tell you which songs as I only listened once , but the broken glass parts sounded the hardest to me.
I assume it was “Never Again,” because that song contains a warning in the liner notes:
“Caution: ‘Never Again’ contains high frequency extremes at the limits of human hearing and beyond, which may cause nausea, headaches and ringing in the ears.”
Strangely, both of these pieces of music were recorded live.
Maybe because it would be impossible to play this hard multiple times?
But the hardest things I’ve ever heard were live: Sonic Youth opening for Neil Young, or maybe the middle of “Like a Hurricane,” which Neil did in Barrie in ’96, for the Year of the Horse tour.
“Sedan Delivery” from that show is on that live album, and “Like a Hurricane” is on the Jim Jarmusch film, but the middle part of the song is replaced by the 1976 version.
Which is really cool, but not that hard.
To hear what a sonic metaphor for a hurricane sounds like, you’d have to listen to one of his 90 or so other live albums: “Arc. Those parts are within half an hour of the noise he released on tour with Sonic Youth, which you could also describe as “extreme almost industrial mayhem…” Or a bit like a welder.
Black Emperor, and they get very heavy at the end of the songs.
I may have heard Ianqui U.X.O. recorded.
Their practices sound just like their albums.
All the heaviest music I’ve heard has been live or recorded live.
I think maybe it’s because it’s really hard to play like that, and one performance will sometimes be the most you can get out of other musicians.
What do you think is the hardest song?
And if you haven’t listened to “Weasels Ripped My Flesh,” you should, because if you know anything harder, I’d be surprised.