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The Harder They Come

Reggae / Latin / Ska & rocksteady · 1972

The Harder They Come

Various Artists

Why listen

Clear melody, group harmonies and rhythmic speech share the same record. Listen for the changes of voice as much as the beat.

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Tracks · previews

English editorial edition

Album story

“You Can Get It If You Really Want” opens with encouragement and an immediately graspable tune. Scotty then changes the terms of engagement on “Draw Your Brakes”, talking his way through the rhythm rather than simply supplying another song in the same mould. By the time the Melodians and Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers To Cross” have followed, the soundtrack has already challenged the idea of reggae as a single mood.

The album accompanies Perry Henzell’s 1972 Jamaican film, in which Cliff plays Ivan, an aspiring singer arriving in Kingston. It is an ensemble selection rather than a Cliff solo record: the Maytals, Desmond Dekker, the Slickers, the Melodians and Scotty also appear. The linked Apple edition preserves a twelve-track programme. The opening song and title song return in the final two positions; these repetitions should not be mistaken for later bonus material.

A scene assembled from records

Existing Jamaican recordings acquire fresh relationships through the film and the album sequence. This is not a single band performing a newly composed score in one session. Different voices bring different ways of occupying the foreground: Cliff’s melodic clarity, the force of group singing, and Scotty’s spoken interventions do not need to be smoothed into one style. Listening to their contrasts makes the compilation’s structure tangible even without the film.

Movement and pressure

The energy of “Sweet And Dandy” and the collective momentum of “Pressure Drop” give way elsewhere to the sustained organ and expansive vocal of “Many Rivers To Cross”. An island-holiday soundtrack is an inadequate description of those changes. Knowing only the film’s basic situation—a musician facing the obstacles of city life and the record business—adds another dimension to its hopeful melodies. Detailed knowledge of the plot is optional, not a qualification for listening.

Two kinds of historical response

In an August 1972 film review, Tony Rayns considered the use of reggae both commercial and resistant. That judgement concerns the film, not an album rating. Much later, Michael Garnice’s Library of Congress essay stressed the soundtrack’s role in bringing Jamaican recordings to wider audiences. That history should not erase the music’s earlier local life. Today the collection remains useful as a route from a shared soundtrack towards the individual artists within it.

The album through its tracks

Follow the individual artist credits through the first four tracks, comparing sung melody with rhythmic speech before continuing through the twelve-track sequence.

  1. Draw Your Brakes

    Scotty’s entrance makes the backing feel like a place in which someone can interrupt, comment and redirect attention. Here, DJ refers to a vocal role as well as the familiar activity of selecting records: an existing recording can become a platform for rhythmic speech. This track uses Keith and Tex’s “Stop That Train”. Separate the singing in the background from Scotty’s interventions in front, and notice which one commands your attention at different moments. You do not have to translate every phrase to hear the timing of an interruption or the expressive lengthening of a sound. Placed after the opening song, it quickly enlarges the album’s idea of what a vocalist can do.

    Reference · Michael Garnice: soundtrack essay hosted by Library of Congress

  2. Many Rivers To Cross

    Listen to how long Cliff holds a sound above the organ before listening for the next line. Instead of asking the accompaniment to supply all the motion, his vocal makes changes of pressure and duration carry the performance. The gospel colouring is also a useful reminder that this collection does not contain one uniform rhythmic formula. Follow the gathering breath as well as the more forceful releases; the high points mean more when their preparation remains audible. The song resonates with the film’s desperate circumstances but need not be reduced to its character’s biography. Compare the following “Sweet And Dandy”: a commanding individual voice gives way to the liveliness of a group.

    Reference · Patricia Meschino, GRAMMY.com,2023: song-by-song retrospective and Cliff interview

Listen next

The Wailing Wailers narrows the focus from a soundtrack gathering several artists to the early recordings of one vocal group.

The Wailing Wailers ↗
References & editorial note

Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.