Yello – The Race
Using a sample doesn’t always mean you use it as it was originally intended to sound like. A good example of this comes from eighties electronic music pioneers Yello in their song The Race from 1988. Yello are best know for their song Oh Yeah which is used in quite a lot of films, mostly in the eighties. The Race however is a good second, some of you may remember from the Max SkateBike commercial in 1989.
As the title suggests, the song is about (drag) racing, illustrated by a sample of a drag racer roaring by on the opening of the song. Somewhere half way through the song however, we hear a different engine roar. Or is it an engine? As it turns out, it’s a horn from the track Tiller Girls from 1978 film adaptation of the musical Cabaret. A sleazy, roaring horn sound in a musical number with drag queens becomes an engine roar of a drag racer. There has to be some poetry in that.
Yello – The Race (extended version)
Oh how I favorite the music music from the , everything seemed to be way much generative than time music.
You’re very correct at this one. In the clip you see a girl screaming when the horns blow and if you watch closely, you see she is doing excact the same movement as you can see in Cabaret.