Napalm Death and the shortest song in the world
English grindcore masters Napalm Death have been around the block a few times. Formed in Meriden in the West Midlands in 1981, they’re an interesting outfit in the sense that none of the band’s original members has featured since 1986. Since then, their initial anarcho-punk blueprint has been pushed to its absolute limits by the lineup of vocalist Barney Greenway, guitarist Mitch Harris, bassist Shane Embury and drummer Danny Herrera, who have featured since 1992’s Utopia Banished.
Aside from their position as pioneers of the grindcore genre, there are many points in the band’s career that are worth discussing, not to mention their surreal appearance in 1989 on a children’s TV show. However, the most notable comes in the form of the Guinness World Record that they hold.
Founder of the band Nicholas Bullen, alongside early members Justin Broadrick (Godflesh and Jesu) and Mick Harris, wrote ‘You Suffer’, a track that is precisely 1.316 seconds long, during the March 1986 demo sessions for the band’s second record, 1988’s From Enslavement to Obliteration. However, finding that they had hit gold, the song made its way onto their debut record, 1987’s Scum. For better or worse, it became the album’s most talked about feature and currently holds the world record as the shortest recorded song.
The track was also released as one side of a 7″ single given away with copies of the now-saught-after compilation album, Grindcrusher. The piece on the other side, ‘Mega-Armageddon Death Part 3’ by thrashcore outfit Electro Hippies, also has a duration of around a second, making the disc the shortest single ever released.
Not only is ‘You Suffer’ fascinating, but so is Scum. Side one was recorded by Broadrick and Nik Napalm, alongside drummer Mick Harris, but as Broadrick and Napalm became sick of the band, they left before completing the project. This meant that the second side was recorded featuring new members Lee Dorian, Bill Steer, and Jim Whitley, with Mick Harris retaining his position. Broadrick later said: “Nick and I left Napalm Death after we recorded the first side of Scum. I’d had enough of Napalm Death very, very quickly”.
When speaking of his tenure in Napalm Death during an interview with Louder in 2022, Broadrick looked back on how young the band were during the recording of their debut: “One fact often overlooked here is that we were so young; I was 16 when I was writing the music for the A side of Scum, some songs were written at 15 years old! I really would not have had a career in music if it wasn’t for John Peel being a fan of both Napalm Death and Head Of David, and to this day, I am extremely proud of what we achieved with the A-side of Scum, but ironically my favourite Napalm Death music is without me. It’s their first John Peel session, an absolute favourite of mine!”
Whilst an argument could be made that the title track is the best cut on the album, there’s no escaping the comedy genius of ‘You Suffer’. Over in an instant, the four-word lyrics are: “You suffer, but why?”.
Broadrick remembered the piece’s origins: “‘You Suffer’ was largely a comedy thing, one-second song. Utterly retarded. It’s ridiculous, but it was hilarious. We played that song in front of 30 local kids, like, every weekend. We played that song 30 times. It was a laugh.”
Elsewhere, Nicholas Bullen, the man who wrote the barely audible four words of the track, later said that the concise 1985 track ‘E!’ by American thrash metal/beer-core outfit Wehrmacht.
Regardless of the song being a joke made by teenagers, it would go on to be incredibly influential. It became a defining influence on the sub-genre noisecore and inspired a host of other grindcore acts, such as Sore Throat, Anal Cunt, and 7 Minutes of Nausea, to release their own “microsongs”. Notably, the Swedish progressive metal act, Opeth, covered the song during a set in 2018.
