HARDY is not only a successful artist, but he is also the writer behind several hits for other artists as well. HARDY (whose real name is Michael Hardy) is known for his stellar songwriting skills. But he is also known for his ability to blur the genre lines between country and rock music.
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In fact, HARDY’s 2023 The Mockingbird & the Crow album was half country, half rock. He’s also had numerous Top 5 hits on both pop and hard rock stations. With that in mind, we found three songs HARDY wrote that were country hits, but could just as easily be heard on rock radio as well.
“Hate My Heart” by Carrie Underwood
Carrie Underwood and HARDY wrote “Hate My Heart” with David Garcia and Hillary Lindsey, for Underwood’s 2022 Denim & Rhinestones album. The song definitely leans into Underwood’s love of rock music. In fact, it was “Hate My Heart” sounding like a rock song that made Underwood want to record it.
“I feel like we kind of married those genres and times together. And wrote a super fun song that I feel like accomplished everything I wanted it to accomplish,” she says in a video.
“Give Heaven Some Hell” by HARDY
HARDY teamed up with Ashley Gorley, Ben Johnson and Hunter Phelps to write “Give Heaven Some Hell,” for his own debut album, appropriately called A Rock.
The song says in part, “I hope you hit those gold streets on two wheels / I hope your mansion in the sky’s got a ten acre field / With some mud and some hubs you can lock in / Make some thunder, make ’em wonder how you got in / Hide your beer, hide your clear from the man upstairs / Crank it loud, hold it down ’til I get there / And when I do, I hope you got some new stories to tell ‘Til then, give Heaven some hell.”
“The original line we threw out was like, ‘I bet there’s stories about his best friend that he can barely tell. Because he’s givin’ heaven some hell,’” Hardy tells Billboard. “I can’t remember who said the line, but we all were like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, give heaven some hell is a great line. We need to write that song.’”
“Never Met Anyone Like You” by Ella Langley
Ella Langley and HARDY wrote Langley’s new song, “Never Met Anyone Like You“, with Jordan Schmidt. The song starts out like a sweet love song. But about halfway through, Langley taps into her rock side for a surprising twist.
“Before I moved to Nashville, I was listening to this guy named HARDY a lot. … I was in that man’s top 3 percent of listeners on Spotify like three years ago. Langley tells Whiskey Riff.
Langley ended up touring with HARDY. At the end, he gifted her a Gibson guitar, which is the guitar she used to write “Never Met Anyone Like You.”
“It was one of the coolest writes ever. And I got to write it on that guitar he gave me from the tour,” she recalls..
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images
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