Harder Than You Think
| "Harder Than You Think" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by Public Enemy | ||||
| from the album How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul? | ||||
| Released | August 13, 2007 (Vinyl Record), August 18, 2012 (iTunes Digital Download) | |||
| Format | 12" vinyl, digital download | |||
| Genre | Hip hop | |||
| Length |
4:10 (album version) 3:10 (UK radio edit) |
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| Label | SLAMjamz Records | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Gary G-Wiz | |||
| Producer(s) | Gary G-Wiz | |||
| Public Enemy chronology | ||||
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"Harder Than You Think" is the first single from Public Enemy's 20th anniversary album How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul? released in 2007. It was produced by Gary G-Wiz. The song attained popularity in summer 2012 when it was chosen as the theme tune to the 2012 Paralympic Games coverage on Channel 4 in the UK, and became Public Enemy's highest-charting single on the UK Singles Chart in August 2012. The track samples extensively from Shirley Bassey's 1972 track "Jezahel" as well as their own 1987 track "Public Enemy No. 1".
The music video was directed by David C. Snyder, and was uploaded unofficially onto YouTube in August 2007. The video has a view count of 7 million as of September 2015.
Following the use of "Harder Than You Think" to soundtrack the UK's Channel 4 coverage of the Summer 2012 Paralympics, a music video including clips from the Channel 4 trailer for the Summer 2012 Paralympics was produced by HWIC Filmworks (founded by John Delserone and David C. Snyder, who directed the original video).
A version of the video was also produced for the Dehasse Radio Edit, a dance version of the track remixed for the 2012 re-emergence of the track in the UK charts.
The song was featured in Eric Koston's segment in the 2007 skateboarding video "Fully Flared". The song and its beat were used by ESPN for the 2011 Big East Men's Basketball Tournament. The song is also featured on the soundtrack of the video game Skate 2. The song was later featured heavily in a Fall K-Mart ad as of September 2011. It is also one of the lead songs in the commercials for ESPN's broadcasting of the Winter X Games. The song featured prominently towards the end of the BBC Four 2011 documentary "Public Enemy: Prophets Of Rage" which was screened as the fourth episode of the channel's "Black Music Legends Of The 1980s" series. It also appeared in the trailer for the 2012 film Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap and was also the only track to feature on its soundtrack album which did not appear in the actual film. The song is also featured at the opening of the 2012 film End of Watch.
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