HARD JAMS: Rehab – The Bartender Song (aka Sittin’ at a Bar) (2008)

I’m sittin at a bar on the inside
Waiting for my ride on the outside
She broke my heart, in the trailer park
So I jacked the keys to her fuckin’ car
Crashed that piece of shit and then stepped away

– Rehab, “The Bartender Song”

Outlaw country is a genre that produces some of the HARDEST music ever, and doesn’t get nearly enough respect. Blending the tried and true country dogma of sad songs about sad times with a kick of popular culture and hard drugs and alcohol, the music as well as the musicians responsible for it dominated popular music in the 1970s and 1980s. However, along the way, money and the American mainstream swept into country music, and took the teeth away from the outlaw sound, opting to turn its purveyors like Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Kenny Rogers into rugged “Marlboro Man” movie icons and rendering other acts like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson into grizzled, worn identifiers of the unrestrained American spirit. But there’s one man who’s always remained a scratchin’, kickin’ and clawin’ redneck rebel. Hank Williams, Jr. In 1981, he had a #1 hit with “All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down,” lamenting the crossover of ALL of the aforementioned hitmakers. However, Hank only had to wait about 20 years for a new generation of hard partying friends.

Today’s hard jam is easily my favorite of the next generation of outlaw artist hits, Rehab’s 2008 minor hit and international bar anthem, “The Bartender Song.”

The band, from Warner Robbins, GA, has been around in various incarnations since 1998. Blending country, blues, reggae, rock and hip hop breaks, the band was initially signed in the wake of hype surrounding the macho nu metal/redneck hip hop craze of Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock and Uncle Kracker. Given that their first album involves a skit of them breaking out of well, rehab, they come off like Rock and Kracker before them did, as the twisted sons of outlaw country.

“The Bartender Song” takes familiar country staples and slams them together with an updated tale of woe about a guy mad at his pill popping wife getting agitated about unpaid debts then unwisely deciding to engage in fisticuffs. Upon realizing the error of his ways, he steals her father’s car, promptly crashes it, walks away, and into the nearest bar. Of course, he violated his parole regulations in doing all of this, so, he’s on the lam, getting drunk, confiding in who else, the bartender. Hard edged real talk and a fantastic hook that leaves the listener enthralled, entertained and if inebriated, shouting along and overjoyed.

http://www.youtube.com/v/6y-yBn_pqgE&hl=en_US&fs=1&

http://www.youtube.com/v/3g9yLvd7G5M&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Carjacking from trailer parks. A country remix with Hank Williams, Jr.? There’s not much harder than that.

HARD JAMS: Eazy E – Real Muthaphukkin G’s (1994)

If you’ve been a fan of TGRIOnline.com as of late, you’ve noticed our preoccupation with having a particular dislike of the beta male, emotionally expressive movement in popular music. It’s not that we so much hate with passion the Kid Cudis and Pitchfork favored alternative indie bands of the world, we just would prefer to not see popular music taken over and inundated with their sound. As we’ve stated in “Alpha Male Music Week” and our “HARD 10!” countdown, we’re just attempting to represent a balance in music. With that being said, we’ll periodically feature some “harder edged” material to shake you out of your doldrums and give you a no crying wanted, swift kick in your musical ass. Do enjoy!

The breakup of legendary hip hop group NWA led to a plethora of HARD material. The breakup was one that was not based on fantastic amounts of personal enmity between band mates, but one borne of financial considerations. The pursuit of large sums of money will make people who otherwise are completely friendly and totally okay with each other resort to the most terrible of aims to get their comeuppance. The fact that in the years following Eazy E’s demise from AIDS that at various points Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and the other members of NWA have all either performed together, or have been cordial in public with each other speaks volumes to what happens when people now have their OWN money, and don’t have to worry anymore about finances as a concern.

But that wasn’t 1994. Yes, in 1989 Ice Cube looked like Nostradamus when he left NWA and started an incredible solo career, including 1991’s lyrically superior NWA diss track “No Vaseline,” which includes the choice line regarding Eazy E’s relationship with Ruthless Records boss Jerry Heller: “Heard you both got the same bank account!/Dumb nigga, What you thinkin’ about?!/Get rid of that devil real simple, put a bullet in his temple.” But by 1994, the battle was hard, and Eazy was a man without a country, taking hits now from both sides, Dr. Dre and new protege Snoop Doggy Dogg wildly impressing the universe with their G-funk anthems on album The Chronic, included therein the track “Fuck Wit Dre Day,” the most condemning track of the entire feud, as Dre produces some of his finest lyricism of his career for the production.

Back against the wall, Eazy E came out swinging, quite literally, with 1994’s “Real Muthaphukkin G’s.” Bitter, mean, angry, embarrassed and ultimately on point, the song is easily one of the lyrical highlights of the 90s, and Eazy, alongside new running buddies BG Knocc Out and Gangsta Dresta pulls no punches and leaves no stone unturned. It’s the least great salvo of the feud, and easily the most manic yet focused rant in rap history espousing the negative values of another human. Take a listen, and sit in awe of what happens when a man has his back against the wall and has to stand and deliver for one last great time.

http://www.youtube.com/v/VsdLn46UXnA&hl=en_US&fs=1&

That’s hard.

HARD JAMS: Oran "Juice" Jones – The Rain (1986)

If you’ve been a fan of TGRIOnline.com as of late, you’ve noticed our preoccupation with having a particular dislike of the beta male, emotionally expressive movement in popular music. It’s not that we so much hate with passion the Kid Cudis and Pitchfork favored alternative indie bands of the world, we just would prefer to not see popular music taken over and inundated with their sound. As we’ve stated in “Alpha Male Music Week” and our “HARD 10!” countdown, we’re just attempting to represent a balance in music. With that being said, we’ll periodically feature some “harder edged” material to shake you out of your doldrums and give you a no crying wanted, swift kick in your musical ass. Do enjoy!

 

Love is cruel. Love is also HARD.

Vindication in the face of a cheating girlfriend is often one of the hardest roads to walk down in a relationship. On one hand, you’re glad the relationship is over, and that you have no need to deal with the front of fidelity, then, as the days, weeks, months and years roll by, one’s angst in the face of dealing with the situation goes through various levels and stages of escalation, from acceptance, to rage, the back to acceptance, and finally, out of your system. Normally, these levels of anger take months, sometimes even years to get through. In 1986, it took Oran “Juice” Jones a four minutes and twenty-three second ballad. It’s a power ballad alright, but it doesn’t pack area rock chords and bridges, no, it legit packs heat.

When you sit and consider the facts behind the release of “The Rain,” the nature of the song as a “HARD JAMS” contender become more than obvious. Jones’ label, OBR Records was the R & B subsidiary of then then iconic, rough, and on fire Def Jam Records. So, the fact that the song is steeped in Motown soul, then de-evolves from classy soul number into extremely vitriolic and mean spirited condemnation should come as no shock to anyone. It fits the slightly askew ideas couched in very familiar sounds concept posited and pushed heavily by Def Jam’s Hall of Fame level producer Rick Rubin in 1986 to the sounds of cash registers sounding like Vegas slot machines to the success of Run-DMC’s “Walk this Way” and Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right (To Party).”

What makes this a HARD JAM transpires at the 2:23 point of the song. Jones’ spoken word “rap” to his jilted lover may be the coldest and meanest moment ever recorded, transcribed below for the mix of raw human emotion and hilarious comedy blended together. It’s only funny if you’ve never been on the end of it happening to you, but, if you’ve had it happen, you know this song, amazingly, is telling the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/v/9dZW1C3neao&hl=en_US&fs=1&

(I saw you)
Hey hey baby how ya doin’ come on in here
(Walking in the rain)
Got some hot chocolate on the stove waiting for you
Listen first things first let me hang up the coat
(You were holding hands and I’ll)
Yeah how was your day today
Did you miss me
(Never be the same)
You did? Yeah? I missed you too
I missed you so much I followed you today
(I saw you)
That’s right now close your mouth
‘Cause you cold busted
(Walking in the rain)
Now just sit down here, sit down here
I’m so upset with you I don’t know what to do
(You were holding hands and I’ll)
You know my first impulse was to run up on you
And do a Rambo
(Never be the same)
I was about to jam you and flat blast both of you
But I didn’t wanna mess up this thirty-seven hundred dollar lynx coat
So instead I chilled — That’s right chilled
I called up the bank and took out every dime.
Than I canceled all your credit cards…
I stuck you up for every piece of jewelery I ever bought you!
Don’t go lookin’ in that closet ’cause everything you came here with is packed up and waiting for you in the guest room. 

What were you thinking?
You don’t mess with the Juice!
I gave you silk suits, blue diamonds and Gucci handbags.
I gave you things you couldn’t even pronounce!
But now I can’t give you nothing but advice.
Cause you’re still young, yeah, you’re young.
And you’re gonna find somebody like me one of these days . . .
Until then, you know what you gotta do?
You gotta get on outta here with that alley-cat-coat-wearing, punch-bucket-shoe-wearing crumbcake I saw you with. 

Cause you dismissed!
That’s right, Silly rabbit, tricks are made for kids, don’t you know that?

You without me is like corn flakes without the milk! 

This is my world. You’re just a squirrel trying to get a nut! 

Now get on outta here!

Scat!
Don’t touch that coat! 

That’s hard.

HARD JAMS: MC5 – Kick Out the Jams (1969)

If you’ve been a fan of TGRIOnline.com as of late, you’ve noticed our preoccupation with having a particular dislike of the beta male, emotionally expressive movement in popular music. It’s not that we so much hate with passion the Kid Cudis and Pitchfork favored alternative indie bands of the world, we just would prefer to not see popular music taken over and inundated with their sound. As we’ve stated in “Alpha Male Music Week” and our “HARD 10!” countdown, we’re just attempting to represent a balance in music. With that being said, we’ll periodically feature some “harder edged” material to shake you out of your doldrums and give you a no crying wanted, swift kick in your musical ass. Do enjoy!

The original obstinately hardcore dudes, when the MC5 told the world that it was time to “KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHERFUCKERS,” a seismic shift took place in popular music. By 1969, the world was just about to get fucking scary. Martin and Malcolm and JFK were dead, and mix that with the fact that for the segment of the hippie movement that was politicized, this was becoming a road to nowhere, something had to give. And as many eminently great music movements of the 20th century did, it all started in Detroit.

Vocalist Rob Tyner’s immediate crescendo to the track is what sets it off. His voice is filled with the type of youthful angst that people use to start riots. Long thought to have been a call to arms for youth revolt, the track instead was a call to arms merely for the MC5 to play, and play hard. The inspiration and vitriol on this track are what make it hard. Rob Tyner could be reading a grocery list for all I know. But it’s in Wayne Kramer’s ethereal guitar playing that this is one of the hardest jams to ever exist. Top notch musicians always have the ability to know exactly how to use the tools of their trade to give dimension to their thoughts and ideals. The MC5 are a punk prototype because they had the innate ability to know how to forge political action and violent ideology into really fantastic sounding music.

Inspiring an entire generation of kids to rebel against the decrepit and decayed nature of society at large through music?

That’s hard.

http://www.youtube.com/v/iM6nasmkg7A&hl=en_US&fs=1&

HARD JAMS: Eamon – "Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)" (2003)

If you’ve been a fan of TGRIOnline.com as of late, you’ve noticed our preoccupation with having a particular dislike of the beta male, emotionally expressive movement in popular music. It’s not that we so much hate with passion the Kid Cudis and Pitchfork favored alternative indie bands of the world, we just would prefer to not see popular music taken over and inundated with their sound. As we’ve stated in “Alpha Male Music Week” and our “HARD 10!” countdown, we’re just attempting to represent a balance in music. With that being said, we’ll periodically feature some “harder edged” material to shake you out of your doldrums and give you a no crying wanted, swift kick in your musical ass. Do enjoy!

Eamon. Let’s go back to 2003. ‘Twas a different time in pop music. But this track, this HARD JAM, would’ve been a hit in an any era.

From the first time in your life that you hear foul language, you’re immediately hooked on it. The word “fuck,” for instance, just cuts out the middle man, and expresses angst so much easier than any other words one could potentially use. Let’s add to foul language the cultural phenomenon that was Jerry Springer. Springer’s syndicated show, a cultural cause celebre at the the time, was famed for rednecks and ne’er do wells taking out their aggression on each other over unrequited love, infidelity, transexual infidelity, infidelity with a transexual, infidelity with strippers, and the ever difficult question of “who gets the double wide trailer in the case of divorce.” In 2003, Springer was just off off a five year run as one of the quickest cross country syndicated program in TV history, so a track that celebrates the filth and foul that made Springer a TV legend? A winner. A bonafide champion, a bit of cultural relevance couched in a well crafted pop ballad.

http://www.youtube.com/v/I96Vh5NuoJg&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Anyone dealing with a sudden and seemingly unwarranted breakup of a relationship goes through phases. There’s anger, repression, and various other repercussions. This song? A clarion call to stage one. Eamon’s girlfriend “played him,” and “gave (another man) head.” She questioned if he cared, and he even told all his homies she was his “great one.” He goes as far as to say that “he can’t sweat it because he loved a hoe.” Those emotions, though placed in a song that can often be described as ridiculous, are truthful and real. The song wouldn’t have hit #1 in six countries internationally, been a Top 20 American single and led to Eamon’s debut album reaching gold selling status if that were not the case. At the end of the day, it boils down to this, a sentiment that at the core of a man’s soul is often the hardest and most paralyzing to deal with.

Fuck what I said it dont mean shit now
Fuck the presents might as well throw em out
Fuck all those kisses they didn’t mean jack
Fuck you, you hoe, I dont want you back

That’s hard.

HARD JAMS: Eminem – Bad Influence

If you’ve been a fan of TGRIOnline.com as of late, you’ve noticed our preoccupation with having a particular dislike of the beta male, emotionally expressive movement in popular music. It’s not that we so much hate with passion the Kid Cudis and Pitchfork favored alternative indie bands of the world, we just would prefer to not see popular music taken over and inundated with their sound. As we’ve stated in “Alpha Male Music Week” and our “HARD 10!” countdown, we’re just attempting to represent a balance in music. With that being said, we’ll periodically feature some “harder edged” material to shake you out of your doldrums and give you a no crying wanted, swift kick in your musical ass. Do enjoy!

After listening to the Dead Wrong remix, I was reminded of a track that was the hardest jam I had ever heard at the impressionable age of 15. Hidden amid the nu-metal of the End of Days soundtrack was Eminem’s non-album cut “Bad Influence,” a companion piece to The Slim Shady EP‘s “Role Model” (which is namedropped in the song).

Resigned to his role as musical bad boy, Em relishes his media image and hits his usual talking points. He attacks his peers (Brandy, Ma$e, Lauryn Hill), and promotes violent misogyny (“Looking for hookers to punch in the mouth with a roll of quarters”), drug abuse, and suicide. The song is a sarcastic nod to the PMRC-crowd. Fuck a subliminal message, Em puts his suicide solution right there in the chorus.

http://www.youtube.com/v/VB_DEoYwz7Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

The first two verses are pretty pedestrian for Em, but the third kicks off with the sickest 12 seconds that he’s ever laid down, both in terms of lyrics and flow:

My laser disc will make you take a razor to your wrist
Make you Satanistic, make you take the pistol to your face
and place the clip and cock it back
and let it go until your brains are rippin’ out
your skull so bad to sew you back would be a waste of stitches.

I vividly recall replaying that rhyme over and over again. Even at 15, we got the joke. Clearly, Em didn’t have the power to make us end it all. But he had the power to point to the idiocy of authority figures and shine a light on their ignorance, which is actually empowering to most teenagers. Once again, Emimen got the last laugh. And that’s hard.

HARD JAMS: Notorious B.I.G. and Eminem – Dead Wrong (RMX) (1999)

If you’ve been a fan of TGRIOnline.com as of late, you’ve noticed our preoccupation with having a particular dislike of the beta male, emotionally expressive movement in popular music. It’s not that we so much hate with passion the Kid Cudis and Pitchfork favored alternative indy bands of the world, we just would prefer to not see popular music taken over and inundated with their sound. As we’ve stated in “Alpha Male Music Week” and our “HARD 10!” countdown, we’re just attempting to represent a balance in music. WIth that being said, we’ll periodically feature some “harder edged” material to shake you out of your doldrums and give you a no crying wanted, swift kick in your musical ass. Do enjoy! 

For a hip hop track to be hard in my book, the most essential necessity is the drum break from Al Green’s “I’m So Glad You’re Mine.” So, with that being said, I clearly have an affinity for the Notorious B.I.G. “I’ve Got a Story to Tell” from Life After Death is one of Biggie’s finest story jams, and that staccato drum loop sets it off perfectly.

For Biggie’s posthumous Born Again, Reverend Al and Willie Mitchell’s Hi Records production is called upon again, but this time for “Dead Wrong,” a masterpiece from Biggie’s side for his magnificence as a rapper, the track serving as a phenomenal memory of his lyrical mastery. But where does the track get HARD JAMS recognition from? Eminem. In 1999, Slim Shady wasn’t hip hop’s cautionary tale of lovelorn parenting and rehab. He was a multiple time Rap Olympics champion who between “Just Don’t Give A Fuck,” “Still Don’t Give a Fuck,” and “My Name Is” turned hip hop on it’s head and became not just a dope white rapper, but the BEST emcee in the game, as a rookie. His brand of hyper-aggressive shock hop recalled images of the type of nihilism that made Ozzy Osborne a megastar and notorious celebrity, and not until we learned how Curtis Jackson was shot nine times, did we ever have a backstory that the entirety of music could find frightening, odd and instantaneously legendary.

http://www.youtube.com/v/gwpFaU7FwtQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

Eminem and Biggie. The concept seemed mindblowing, and for me as an “Urban Beats” DJ and radio programmer at Providence College in 1999, when Eminem stepped to the microphone, he didn’t so much have a lot to prove as have a situation to completely define himself as a vastly different sort of brand name emcee, shoving open numerous doors at the same time in the industry, and he delivered this:

There’s seven different levels to Devil worshippin: horse’s heads,
Human sacrifices, cannibalism; candles and exorcism
Animals havin sex with ’em; camels mammals and rabbits
But I don’t get into that, I kick the habit – I just,
Beat you to death with weapons that eat through the flesh
And I never eat you unless the fuckin, meat looks fresh
I got a lion in my pocket, I’m lyin, I got a nine in my pocket
And baby I’m just, dyin to cock it
He’s ready for war, I’m ready for war
I got machetes and swords for any faggot that said he was raw
My uz’ as, heavy as yours, yeah you met me before
I just didn’t have as large an arsenal of weapons before
Marshall will step in the door, I lay your head on the floor
With your body spread on the bedspread, red on the wall
Red on the ceilin, red on the floor, get a new whore
Met on the second, wet on the third;
Then she’s dead on the fourth – I’m dead wrong

That’s hard.

HARD JAMS: Akinyele feat. Kim Jeffries – Put It In Your Mouth (1996)

If you’ve been a fan of TGRIOnline.com as of late, you’ve noticed our preoccupation with having a particular dislike of the beta male, emotionally expressive movement in popular music. It’s not that we so much hate with passion the Kid Cudis and Pitchfork favored alternative indy bands of the world, we just would prefer to not see popular music taken over and inundated with their sound. As we’ve stated in “Alpha Male Music Week” and our “HARD 10!” countdown, we’re just attempting to represent a balance in music. WIth that being said, we’ll periodically feature some “harder edged” material to shake you out of your doldrums and give you a no crying wanted, swift kick in your musical ass. Do enjoy! 

“Put It In Your Mouth” is the New York’s answer to the popularity of the 2 Live Crew, and quite frankly, due to its beyond ridiculous levels of filth laden content, one of the hardest jams of all time. Akinyele didn’t start in the hip hop game to be a loquacious Luther Campbell clone. In fact, if you listen to his verse on his debut on wax, Main Source’s “Live at the BBQ,” he’s another in the long list of young, hungry and lyrically gifted emcees down with Large Professor, a solid addition to the New York scene, but in no way a standout. Fast forward two years to 1996, and he’s completely different. He’s upped the ante on the sex rhymes, created a fantastic gimmick, and well on the way to creating one of the most iconic party jam odes to oral sex in music history.

http://www.youtube.com/v/sfhWdsmd7IE&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

Producer Chris Forte is a one track wonder. But what a track it is. The drum pattern from Al Green’s “I’m So Glad You’re Mine,” blended with the hit hat and acoustic guitar from late 70s funkateers Brick’s reggae tinged track “Fun” creates a hard but flow ready melody that induces nothing more than droppin’ it low and slow grinding with your object of the song’s lustful intent. As well, given that the song has become a favorite of drunken and silly interactions everywhere, the fact that literally every bar of the track, from Kim Jeffries on the hooks to Ak’s ridiculous flow makes the entire 3:30 of the song a hip hop quotable. I’d reprint some of the favorites here, but literally, bar for bar, there’s really nothing quite like it. All I need to show anyone is the video below to cosign the effectiveness of the ribald lyrical poetry of the song:

http://www.youtube.com/v/_CSnxUEW7ls&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

Repulsing lyrics that force the listener into sexual bliss? Hard.

HARD FACTS: Al Green‘s “I’m So Glad Your Mine” also provides the drum loop for another HARD JAM we’ll be covering soon, Biggie and Eminem’s “Dead Wrong.” Furthermore, Brick’s “Fun?” India Arie’s video owes it’s summer, wine sipping and laconic nature to it.

TGRIOnline’s HARD JAMS presents…M.O.P. – Ante Up (2000)

If you’ve been a fan of TGRIOnline.com as of late, you’ve noticed our preoccupation with having a particular dislike of the beta male, emotionally expressive movement in popular music. It’s not that we so much hate with passion the Kid Cudis and Pitchfork favored alternative indy bands of the world, we just would prefer to not see popular music taken over and inundated with their sound. As we’ve stated in “Alpha Male Music Week” and our “HARD 10!” countdown, we’re just attempting to represent a balance in music. WIth that being said, we’ll periodically feature some “harder edged” material to shake you out of your doldrums and give you a no crying wanted, swift kick in your musical ass. Do enjoy!

Hardcore rhyme slayers M.O.P. are arguably the most influential tough bar spitting duo in hip hop history. With nearly 20 years in the game, they have worked with literally every legendary emcee and producer in rap, but due to label politics, have very little in the way of gold and platinum records to show for their groundbreaking status. However, the purveyors of “hard” in hip hop do have something to show for their diligence and dedication to craft and style in one of the hardest jams of all time, their biggest seller, from 2000’s Warriorz  album, “Ante Up.”

http://www.youtube.com/v/3MUGAxpI0Bc&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

Take minks off! Take things off!
Take chains off! Take rings off!
Bracelets is yapped, Fame came off!
(Ante Up!) Everything off!
Fool what you want? We stiflin them fools
Fool what you want? Your life or your jewels?
The rules, (back em down) next thing, (clap em down)
Respect mine we Brooklyn bound, (bound! now, (now!)

These lyrics are some of the most obvious calls for criminally minded, ignorant and raucous behavior in a nightclub. By the above listed words ALONE, with no other words, it’s obvious why “Ante Up” is one of the hardest jams in music history.

Producer DR Period creates the perfect track once again for M.O.P.’s tales of criminal behavior. He was the mastermind behind their first minor hit, “How About Some Hardcore?,” and on “Ante Up,” with the aid of a boom bap kickdrum and one of the most insistent horn loops in the history of the genre, Billy Danze and Lil’ Fame paint one of the most motivating odes to crime committed to record. The track makes you want to jack someone. In fact, gold chains, diamonds, rings, money, “old gold and marijuana” are all robbed in lyrics, and there’s enough talk of gunplay and kidnapping if you don’t just hand over the goods that even the unharmed listener is likely shook by the descriptions of the activities described.

It’s one of the great shames in the history of rap music that Billy Danze and Lil’ Fame did not ascend to being hip hop megastars. M.O.P. is short for the street gang “Mash Out Posse” that they founded as Brownsville, Brooklyn youths. In being street hustlers and not drug dealers who were able to eventually cash out of the game like Superfly, there’s a deeper authenticity to their lyrics of grime and struggle, as well, it always appears that they could STILL hit the streets and be successful stick-up men. Can we say that for 50 Cent of Jay-Z? Clearly not.

I’m a street regulator, true playa hater
Get back dunn make yo’ ass a mack spraya hater
Things that we need, money, clothes, weed indeed
Hats, food, booze, essentials, credentials
Code of the streets, owners who creep
Slow when you sleep, holdin the heat
Put holes in your jeep, respect mine we streets

That’s hard.

HARD FACTS: “Ante Up”‘s remix featuring Busta Rhymes, Teflon and Remy Ma may indeed be the version of this track more mainstreamed fans are aware of. To prove just how all encompassing and ridiculously hard M.O.P. are, Teflon still remains unsigned, Remy Ma is in jail for shooting someone, and Busta Rhymes had five separate assault charges since the year 2000. Incredible.

TGRIOnline’s HARD JAMS presents…Black Flag – Rise Above (1981)

 

If you’ve been a fan of TGRIOnline.com as of late, you’ve noticed our preoccupation with having a particular dislike of the beta male, emotionally expressive movement in popular music. It’s not that we so much hate with passion the Kid Cudis and Pitchfork favored alternative indy bands of the world, we just would prefer to not see popular music taken over and inundated with their sound. As we’ve stated in “Alpha Male Music Week” and our “HARD 10!” countdown, we’re just attempting to represent a balance in music. WIth that being said, we’ll periodically feature some “harder edged” material to shake you out of your doldrums and give you a no crying wanted, swift kick in your musical ass. Do enjoy! 
 
Black Flag’s “Rise Above” is hard because in listening to it, you feel like Roger Federer is serving your face to someone’s heart like a kamikaze tennis ball.

We here at TGRIOnline.com appreciate the legacy of punk music. There’s something truly liberating and ultimately anti-authority and counter cultural about it, all concepts that we freely and willfully embrace. That being said, we may feel that there as no more focused, political, and iconic band of the punk movement than LA’s Black Flag. Started in 1977 by Greg Ginn, the band was initially named Panic, and many of the band’s initial members wilted under Ginn’s stentorian habits as a leader, including daily marathon length practices that eventually reduced the band to the core of Ginn, ex singer who burnt out his voice Dez Cadena, Chuck Dukowski on bass, the highly distinctive ROBO on drums, and the most important addition, Washington, DC’s Henry Rollins as lead singer.

Rollins had a history in the DC scene recording with State of Alert on Ian Mackaye‘s legendary Dischord Records. When Black Flag toured DC, Rollins turned an impromptu sit in with the band into a long lasting career changing decision. Rollins brought a focused, intense, intellectual and hyper-political edge to Black Flag, turning every song into a threat rather than a promise, and often fighting crowds with his hardcore attitude and chiseled physique providing amplification for his beliefs. There may be no finer song to display this than the giant smash from their 1981 debut record Damaged, “Rise Above.”

http://www.youtube.com/v/6fUi1kFvL8g&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

“Rise Above” is an anthemic call to arms for the punk movement against mainstream ignorance and hate. In those being the core and contingent issues of the song, the lyrics read as anarchy against society for anyone downtrodden, which elevates the song to phenomenal political statement. It being the iconic track from Black Flag’s debut album, it stands the test of time as the defining moment of Rollins’ career, identifying him as an authoritative voice by force of intellect and physical presence, his voice a sledgehammer of truth cutting through the excellent and aggressive melodies of the band. Greg Ginn’s lead guitar here is easily some of the most inspired playing in the history of the genre, and is clearly mirrored by so many who came after him. Here, the sounds still to this day sound fresh, pulverizing and terrifically vital.

“Rise Above” as a political record is where it achieves it’s truly hard status. Released in 1981, it’s done so in the face of Ronald Reagan’s election as President and the notion that rampant conservatism in the face of the wild and totally unrestrained 1970s were upon us. Henry Rollins and crew attempt to punch Ronald Reagan and his Republican cohorts in the face with brass knuckled fists, and kick them square in the nuts with steel-toed jack boots. Maybe they didn’t succeed, but to try and gain such recognition and renown, that takes the kind of effort than can only gets you described in the annals of history as “hard.”

HARD FACTS: Guitar Magazine lists Greg Ginn as the 99th best guitar player of all time out of 100, and Rolling Stone cites Damaged as the 340th best album of all time out of 500. Both of these rankings…travesties.