I love free samples, ESPECIALLY from Costco. I will go to Costco specifically to walk around and retrieve free samples. Lame, I know. Sometimes a mother will take ANY kind of free time she can get, though!
Anyways, this is not the sort of sampling that I am referring to in this blog.
Music sampling: Creative? Original?
I'm actually quite on the fence regarding this topic. Sometimes it is fun and entertaining to hear parts of songs make special appearances in other songs. I think it switches things up a bit. It gives the listener the, "Hey, I know that song!" feeling. However, I suppose it can also give the listener the "Um, this is NOT their song" feeling.
For example, Dead or Alive featured a song called "You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record)" in 1985 on the album, Youthquake.
In 2009, Flo Rida came out with a song called "Right Round" featuring a sample from the aforementioned band's hit song.
Some listener's liked it. Some did not. I personally found Flo Rida's edition to be quite catchy. It is entertaining.
Another example would be Martika Toy's "Soldier" and Eminem's "Like Toy Soldiers". He cleverly incoorporated her last name into the title even.
If you go to popculturemadness.com/music/samples, you can see several different examples. I'm not incredibly familiar with most of them, but there are plenty there!
In a way, sampling is creative. It is taking different pieces of different puzzles and trying to create something unique, but still familiar.
On the other hand, it's still different pieces of different puzzles trying to be put together and it's creating something kind of ugly and disfunctional.
I am on the fence about it and can see where both points of view would have a fair argument. What do you think?
I like your blog. It’s funny that you mention “Right Round”. I also commented on that one. That was my example for a song that I don’t like the use of sampling on, but I agree that it’s a catchy song because of the chorus. I didn’t think if the Eminem song using Martica. I never thought I would hear that one ever again, so it was funny to hear it and I enjoyed it. It’s a big contrast to Eminem’s style though. I came to the conclusion that if it done tastefully and credit is given to the original artists sampling is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteHey Lauren, Your intro was super funny and really made me laugh. I thought you might have been serious until I read on further. As far as Florida, I also think he song is entertaining but do think that he is building a bit of a reoutation on other peoples music. Not that it is wrong but I do hope that the original artist gets a cut from all the profits he made from it. I also like when artists like Eminem or Jay-Z sample a beat with a good melody as it adds some nice flow to their style of rapping. Without it, I feel that the lyrics would probably just overpower the song and not have the same artistic expression. I especially liked Jay-Z sample of "Forever Young" by Sting. It does take some real talent to build upon such a great original piece. Building on what has already been created is a accomplishment in its own right. I like how you state like it is like putting a puzzle together. You have all the pieces but it still takes time to get it right.
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