Vim Fuego
Most metal fans will be well aware of Napalm Death’s legendary shortest song in the world, the one second-ish long (the official length varies from 0.75 to 1.3 seconds) “You Suffer”, from the “Scum” album. The tiny little explosion of a song emphasised the extremity of the then embryonic grindcore music genre. There’s four word- “You suffer, but why?” and perhaps four notes, according to Mick Harris. In the early days the band used to play it over and over live just for comedy effect.
As ridiculous as a one second song may be, “You Suffer” is revered by fans of extreme music the world over. Belgian noise artist Bedawang decided to put together a tribute to the song, gathering 100 grind, hardcore, noise, experimental and Avant-garde versions of “You Suffer”.
This has been done before, but not quite in the same manner. The 1992 album “Stairways to Heaven” was a compilation of various Australian artists performing Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven”, most famously including a wobble board version by now-disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris. Fat Wreck Chords put together the “Short Music For Short People” compilation in 1999, which featured 101 songs clocking in at under 30 seconds each.
So, 100 versions of a one second song means this album should clock in somewhere around the 100 second mark, or a minute and 40 seconds? Nope. It’s well over two hours long.
Sure, there are plenty of straight covers of the song, which are only a second or two long, but there is an unbelievable scope for messing around with this miniature song. “You Suffer (17 Times)” by Hell Garbage repeats the entire song an unsurprising seventeen times. “You Suffer (Unplugged)” by Brian McParland is exactly that and takes around 23 seconds. “You Suffer (Popopo)” by Porion speeds up repeated samples to a supersonic squeal. “You Suffer (Billy)” by Simiapath starts with the whistled introduction to Colonel Bogey, before descending into an utterly broken series of samples and loops, completely fucking with the concept of rhythm, keeping time, and what actually constitutes music. “You Suffer (Bow Bow Bow)” by T-Bone McFlargle sounds like Mr. McFlargle got a bit drunk and then tried to recite the lyrics of the song. There are ambient drone versions, dance versions, and plenty of “what-the-fuck-was-that?” versions of the song.
While all the song titles have the words “You Suffer” in them, some imagination has been put into some of the titles. Try these out: “You Suffer (Because You Cheated On Me You Bitch)”, “You Suffer (Because You're A Stupid Fuck)”, “You Suffer (In Your Imaginary World, Absolutely Not Linked With The Real One)”, “You Suffer (Butt Wipe)”, “You Suffer (Cheesydogcreamcat)”.
While all this sounds like a lot of fun, listening to this album is not. Instructions included with the album say it should be listened to on random play, so each listening experience is different. Unfortunately, each listening experience is basically the same annoying mish-mash. The grind versions of the song flash by, some of the drones really drone, and the harsh noise versions are so far removed from the original song they just end up frustrating to listen to. The music/non-music is just too disparate for any sort of sense to come from this.
It is impossible to listen to this entire album in one sitting, and it can’t be left on as background music either, as many of the songs are like an attention seeking child who won’t just sit down and shut up and leave you alone.
Chalk this one up as a noble gesture, but poorly executed.