Sampling

[Guest Eagan469]

I was at my friend's house a year or two ago, and he turns on his stereo, and the first part of Mr. Mister's "Broken Wings" came on, and I'm like "dude, I didn't know you were into this kind of music, that's cool!" when all of a sudden a guy starts rapping over it. I was like WTF?

 

Turns out it was Tupac. So Tupac sampled a song that was a #1 hit less than 10 years ago.

 

What a douche.

[Guest IDrinkRatsMilk]

One thing you should probably keep in mind is that rap is really all about the vocals. A rapper, or rap fan, probably doesn't care much about being lazy or uncreative with the beats, as that's not what the song is being sold on.

[Guest Lethargic]

The one I heard was him rapping over Bruce Hornsby's That's Just the Way It Is. I think that song gave me cancer.

[Guest godthedog]

i'd like to reiterate that all the nonbelievers need to download all of 'paul's boutique'. now. or at least download "the end" by the beatles, and compare it to the beasties' "sounds of science." they take a sample and make it completely and utterly their own. i've never heard anyone listen to 'paul's boutiqe' and not call it art (inasmuch as popular music can be called art).

[Guest IDrinkRatsMilk]

And as long as we're reiterating download recommendations, kid606, Straight Outta Compton, particularly directed at the contentious Lethargic. It nicely illustrates the point I made earlier, and don't worry, there's no way you could dance to it.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Sampling in small amounts is fine, because it comes off as paying a homage, however a lot of today's artists overuse it and any and EVERY hit they have is the product of SOMEONE ELSE's music and SOMEONE ELSE's lyrical writing. So all they basically are is a pretty or thuggish face to go along with the fancy wrapping paper around the plastic cd of someone ELSE's creation.

[Guest saturnmark4life]

IDRM knows his shit. You can't compare the sampling that P Diddy does to a master like Kid606.

[Guest Midnight Express83]

Rap IS about sampling and Breakdance beats. It always has, always will. What makes a good rapper if they can make a better song than the one they covered/sampled. But here is the catch, mostly the songs that are sampled are the ones for single releases. Most times than not, they do have alot of orinigal songs on CDs, just what the record comps want to put out for a good party hit.

 

As for "Sing for the moment" after hearing the song three times I knew 90% of the words to the entire song. But saying you can only remember a hook of a song is easy since their are less words to remember.

 

As for P. Diddy. He has done good sampling and some bad ones. But what he likes to do is take a song, and trying to put a new meaning to the same message.

[Guest Gamengiri2002]

Here we are just doing a joke, saying we're just a couple of loser ass white guys that have no raping ability at all.

Hey now, are we in someway insinuating that white guys are substandard rapists in comparison with rapists of other ethnic groups?

 

'Cause I think that is kind of dangerous propaganda that could get a lot of people killed.

[Guest Anglesault]

I can only remember the "Dream On" portion of Eminem's "Sing for the Moment". If you can't remember the rap portion of the song yet recognize the song being sampled, it's not a very good rap song involving sampling.

I listened to the first part, not understanding anything, until the Tyler clip, which sounds 30 years old, comes on, and Eminem starts screaming over that. I gave up at that point.

 

I don't understand why he didn't just do Walk This Way. It's been whored out more times than the girl at the corner, so nothing that moron could do with it would shock me anyway, and you know, it can actually work as a rap song if need be.

[Guest El Satanico]

So AS why would you start such a thread when you're obviously too closed minded to hear anything said on the subject?

 

Guess what "Rock n' Roll" isn't a totally original form of music either. And just like "rock n' roll" has good and bad bands, there are good and bad "rappers".

 

So unless you're going to be open minded why even ask about the subject.

[Guest Anglesault]

Guess what "Rock n' Roll" isn't a totally original form of music either.

It was derived from all sorts of earlier forms of music, from big bands right down to the blues, IIRC. Point?

 

 

So unless you're going to be open minded why even ask about the subject.

 

I'm waiting for an exceptable reason.

 

And just like "rock n' roll" has good and bad bands, there are good and bad "rappers".

 

So they say. I've yet to hear a rapper I can personally stand. Pre conceived notions combined with nothing of note to break said notions, I suppose.

[Guest EricMM]

Gamengiri, I think the term is "rappers" since "rapists" aren't known for their sampling as much as their crimes...

 

I think the michaelangelo comparison is apropriate because if you take the statue david and you break it (lets say you broke a copy since you're not actually breaking the original) and turned it into a horse, and it was a good horse, that would take talent. You can obviously make a horse out of something that wasn't horse like. That is skill. If you take david, put in him red paint with horns on it, put a tail on it and call it your own sculture of the devil, that's just stupid because everyone knows it's not your origional work.

 

That's what "Sing on" is like. I'm not saying Em's lyrics aren't catchy, a few of them are. I'm saying the basic background of Stephen Tyler is not his to mess with. Nor does he give any credit at all.

 

There is a distinction between covers and sampling. A band covering a song is an homage. WILL SMITH (king of "sampling") taking disco songs like the songs that led to the "Men in Black" song, COOLIO for taking the song that became "Fantastic Voyage", SNOOP DOGG for taking the Atomic Dog and making it into the song it became, those aren't covers. That's just stupid sampling, basically copying the song with new lyrics and saying you made it. It's stupid. Sampling like the avalanches do is different because it's not clear as day which old hit they're trying to turn into a new hit

[Guest Gamengiri2002]

Gamengiri, I think the term is "rappers" since "rapists" aren't known for their sampling as much as their crimes...

 

I think the michaelangelo comparison is apropriate because if you take the statue david and you break it (lets say you broke a copy since you're not actually breaking the original) and turned it into a horse, and it was a good horse, that would take talent. You can obviously make a horse out of something that wasn't horse like. That is skill. If you take david, put in him red paint with horns on it, put a tail on it and call it your own sculture of the devil, that's just stupid because everyone knows it's not your origional work.

 

That's what "Sing on" is like. I'm not saying Em's lyrics aren't catchy, a few of them are. I'm saying the basic background of Stephen Tyler is not his to mess with. Nor does he give any credit at all.

 

There is a distinction between covers and sampling. A band covering a song is an homage. WILL SMITH (king of "sampling") taking disco songs like the songs that led to the "Men in Black" song, COOLIO for taking the song that became "Fantastic Voyage", SNOOP DOGG for taking the Atomic Dog and making it into the song it became, those aren't covers. That's just stupid sampling, basically copying the song with new lyrics and saying you made it. It's stupid. Sampling like the avalanches do is different because it's not clear as day which old hit they're trying to turn into a new hit

I will assume that we mutually understand that I know the difference between rappers and rapists and was pointing out what i assumed was a humorous typo (ie. raping instead of rapping)

[Guest Anglesault]

Gamengiri, I think the term is "rappers" since "rapists" aren't known for their sampling as much as their crimes...

Coincidentially, the same goes for many rappers. Oh, come on, that was lef WIDE OPEN.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

SNOOP DOGG for taking the Atomic Dog and making it into the song it became, those aren't covers. That's just stupid sampling, basically copying the song with new lyrics and saying you made it. It's stupid.

Actually, I'll take issue with this criticism. Dr. Dre's backing track for "Who Am I (What's My Name)," the song in question, isn't just ripped from one song. He plays with the tempo and pulls together "Knee Deep," "Give Up The Funk," and "Atomic Dog" from just the P-Funk All-Stars catalogue, working a lot of other little bits from other funk music into the beat too. I'd call the way he organizes and modulates everything to be pretty artful.

 

I know you probably won't give a shit considering your view on recognizable samples, but I couldn't help but give credit where credit is due. Some people do it poorly, and some do it extremely well, as is the case with any musical form.

[Guest Madmartigan21]

Besides: the most important part of a song is a baseline. It could be from a PC or by a bass or a piano or anything. That is the foundations of a song. And there are only so many baseline cords and tunes to do. What makes songs different is what you put on top of the baseline. Sampling in its purest form is taking that baseline and adding more to it to make it different. ALL music styles do it. And to say they don't is just lying to yourself.

I believe this to be incorrect.

 

There is NO baseline in "When Doves Cry" because Prince removed it entirely during the mixing process. Yet it's still a great song, which would seem to crush your theory.

 

But aside from that, I still wouldn't believe it to be correct. How does a piano by itself create a baseline?

 

And what about all the great versions of songs that have been done simply with a singer and an acoustic guitar. If the baseline is the most important thing, why don't those songs suffer immensely from its lack, and just flat out suck?

 

So the baseline is the most important element of classical music as well?

 

I admit that I know NOTHING about muscial theory. But it has always seemed to me that just about anything that has a baseline so strong that you can hear it coming from some asshole's car from three blocks away (You know the guy, the one with the rims that cost more than the rest of his car. Mr. All Flash and NO Cash. But I digress.) is music made by the lazy and untalented. They have no idea how to string chords together, which I believe are the TRUE foundation of music. At least Billy Joel said they were, and I'm more inclined to believe him.

[Guest saturnmark4life]

Well, many rap songs have basslines which I find to be acceptable. Sorry, I couldn't sit idly by and read those typos.

[Guest Midnight Express83]

Everything has a rhythm to it. There is a bass line into every song. The top cords of a guitar are bass. The left had on a piano is the bass. Even people who sing a song a cupola are with a rhythm in their head. You can always count 1234, 1234, 1234. Music is built off of this. Now a days it is more noticeable but a person can always find the rhythm of a song. That is what the bass line I was talking about.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

1234 isn't necessary, considering that there's pretty much an infinite amount of rhythms one could use, not to mention polyrhythmic shit. I wish I could remember the composer's name, I know he was American, and from New England, but he made a piece that is meant to sound like two marching bands moving towards a given point and going past one another. it's brilliant.

 

When it comes to a rock song though, nothing's more important than vocals. NOTHING. Anyone can tap off a 4/4 beat, but it's the lyrics and the singer that everyone remembers. You can take the music of several different bands, just take say, the bassline or the guitar riffs, and they won't sound like anything..add a beat, ok, you're getting somewhere..then the vocals, presto, it's officially a song.

 

Instrumentals are a totally different can of worms, as pretty much all of them I've heard are iffy. Either meant to be used as intros and outros, or else masturbatory soloing for the sake of doing a solo.

 

Pink Floyd and King Crimson are the only two bands I can think of that are definite exceptions to that theory.

[Guest mesepher]

Instrumentals are a totally different can of worms, as pretty much all of them I've heard are iffy. Either meant to be used as intros and outros, or else masturbatory soloing for the sake of doing a solo.

 

Pink Floyd and King Crimson are the only two bands I can think of that are definite exceptions to that theory.

and you call yourself a Zappa fan... shame...

[Guest Midnight Express83]

Quick note on Rock n Roll. Rock N Roll in its root form is R&B music at the time. Just covers of black songs done by white people. That is rock n roll in its root form. Its Rock when a white person does it, its R&B when a black person does it. It isn't a racial remark, it is the truth.

 

"The King" did nothing but go to black clubs and preform the same songs the next night in white clubs, he wasn't doing anything original unless it was him singing country. That atleast explains his career in the 50s amd early 60s.

[Guest Anglesault]

Keyword, cover.

 

Its Rock when a white person does it, its R&B when a black person does it. It isn't a racial remark, it is the truth.

 

Rock is a little harder (Sounding), IMO. That's the difference I think.

[Guest Midnight Express83]

Not today's rock, rock roots. WHen you say roots, you are saying its beginnings. Today's rock changed into tons of subgenre's. But Rock at its roots is pop music. Hell, all genre's in the roots are pop music(at the time or currently).

[Guest El Satanico]

So when rock n' roll artists did it, it was ok because it sounded different? However, when rap artists do it, it's not ok and is ripping people off, eventhough it sounds different?

 

Sampling is technically a "cover", but the original song is shaped into something different. Rock N' Roll shaped blues and r&b into something different.

 

It's the same basic thing and you just refuse to see it.

[Guest Anglesault]

Sampling is technically a "cover", but the original song is shaped into something different.

Which makes it "Not a cover"

[Guest EricMM]

Covers are different because credit is blatently given to the original artist, such as, they use the same name. Ergo, Run D.M.C. made a COVER of Walk This Way along with Aerosmith. When Goldfinger made a COVER record, every song was called by it's origional record.

 

When J.Lo rips off the beatnuts so heavily, it's just so apparent, and gives no credit, it's just stupid. Blatent sampling is *STUPID*

[Guest Anglesault]

A cover is also the same song. Eminem can give all the credit in the world to Tyler, that song is not Dream On.

 

And while the Run DMC song is a cover, in a way I don't consider it to be one because they did it with the original band. It's more of a "band duet"

[LaParkaYourCar 0]

Sampling can be as basic as using clips of obscure songs and sounds ran through a process of distorting and remixing in quick little blurbs...or it can be like P Diddy and be a total rip off of a song.

[Guest El Satanico]

Sampling can be as basic as using clips of obscure songs and sounds ran through a process of distorting and remixing in quick little blurbs...or it can be like P Diddy and be a total rip off of a song.

Yes and like others have said earlier in this thread, that's the difference between good sampling and bad sampling.