Tag: links

  • Edvard Grieg – In the Hall of the Mountain King

    Classical composer Edvar Grieg wrote In the Hall of the Mountain King for the play Peer Gynt which premiered in 1876. As such, it had a cinematic soundtrack quality to it, long before cinema became a broad popular pastime. Because of this it has long been a favorite background music for television and film. Most recently a rendition by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross popped up on the award-winning soundtrack of The Social Network.

    A lot of musicians covered or sampled it, without it being specifically intended to accompany moving images. Notable covers are the versions by The Lancasters (titled Satan’s Holiday in 1965) ELO (1973), Apollo 100 as Mad Mountain King (1972) The Who (recorded in 1967, released in 1995), metal cello-quartet Apocalyptica (2000) and Epica (2009).

    But sampling it has been done quite a lot too. Whistle used the melody as a short hook in Just Buggin’ (1986). Master-sampler Coldcut featured a sample in Stop This Crazy Thing (1988) from (I think) the jazz-cover by Hugo Montenegro. Tango used it in the acid-track Can’t Stop the Rush. The song is among the classical tunes used in the title theme for the Sonic the Hedgehog-cartoon (1993). Vibes & Wishdokta used it in Motorway Madness (1996). A personal hardcore favorite: Juggernaut’s Ruffneck Rules da Artcore Scene (1996) Eurodance-artists Captain Jack used it in Dream a Dream (1999 and the 2009 version too). Delinquent Habits used it impressively in The Kind (1999). Most recently parts of it were used by Votchi in Unicorn (2004).

    As a bit of trivia, according to the Wikipedia-article the tune also served as the basis for the Inspector Gadget theme.

  • Bernard Purdie

    Last week I talked about Bernard Purdie’s song Soul Drums from 1968 which got sampled in Devil’s Haircut . The same track also got sampled in a Christmas track by Mansfield, entitled 2010.12.25 from 2000. Bernard Purdie is a session drummer who performed with people like James Brown, Aretha Franklin, BB King, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Joe Cocker.

    Sampled drum breaks from Bernard Purdie songs are also in popular demand. The block rockin’ beats in Block Rockin’ Beats (1997) by the Chemical Brothers came from Purdie’s Changes from 1972. Interestingly the song was sampled before by Zhigge in Rakin’in the Dough (1992), but it used a bassloop. Changes itself is a cover of Them Changes (1970) by Buddy Miles.

    The Prodigy’s 3 Kilos (1994) samples Good Livin’ (Good Lovin’) (1972). The song 3 Kilos is on the album Music for the Jilted Generation. On the same album is Poison which contains a bunch of drum samples, one of them being Bernard Purdie’s Heavy Soul Singer (1972). The same sample can be heard faintly in the back ground on Massive Attack’s Mezzanine (1998).

    I mentioned Beck already, but his album Odelay contains another track, Hotwax, that samples Song for Aretha (1971) also by Bernard Purdie. Pepe Deluxe used the same sample in Lying Peacefully (2003).

    To top it off, Bernard Purdie himself ‘sampled’ too. His 1971 track Funky Mozart borrows the basics from Symphony #40 in G Minor by Mozart from 1788. That’s some old funky stuff.

    My personal favourite that contains a Purdie sample? Block Rockin’ Beats obviously:

  • Beck – Devil’s Haircut

    It’s interesting to see how some artists draw samples from the same artists and albums they have done before. Take Beck and his album Odelay, more specifically Devil’s Haircut from 1996. The track contains a lot of samples, which would take a few years to figure out. I’ll limit this post to three that stand out.

    Beck samples a band called Them (with singer Van Morrison) and he takes two samples from two separate tracks from the same album Them Again from 1966. One is I Can Only Give You Everything, the other Out of Sight. Interestingly, Beck’s album Odelay features another sample from Them Again. From It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue is used directly in Jack-Ass.

    Part of the drum loops comes from the excellent song Soul Drums from 1968 by Bernard Purdie. You kinda wonder why only Mansfield was the only to sample the same track in the song 2010.12.25 from 2000, since it’s such an excellent drum break which is so easy to sample. Not that Bernard Purdie never got sampled. He has been sampled a lot, but I’ll tell you all about that next week.

    For now here’s Devil’s Haircut with Them in it twice:

  • KLF – What Time Is Love?

    The KLF‘s track What Time Is Love (the Pure Trance 1 version) was originally released in 1988 and is an original acid house track. Their breakthru however came with a reworked version What Time Is Love (Live at Trancentral) in 1990. They described this track as “stadium house”. This version does however contain a few samples.

    The “I wanna see you sweat” sample comes from the track To the Bone by Wanda Dee released just 1 year earlier in 1989. Interestingly another sample from that track was used on the KLF’s Last Train to Transcentral.

    The KLF also used a sample of the MC5’s Kick out the Jams from 1969. This had a double meaning since The KLF had previously worked under the name The Justified Ancients of MuMu, which in turns was abreviated to The JAMs. There’s also a sample by Kraftwerk’s Home Computer (1981) hidden in the middle.

    After the  second release in 1990, the KLF also released a third version of the song entitled America: What Time Is Love? in 1991. This completely reworked version features a sample of Ace of Spades (1980) by Motörhead.

    In the wake of the three versions of the song followed a few interesting songs. The Ragga Twins sampled it in Wipe the Needle already in 1991. Scooter (sadly) sampled it not once, but twice in a song, like he pretty much rips off any dance track that was ever famous. In 1993 The God Machine made a industrial-metal cover.The most bizarre cover of the song is most certainly The Williams Fairey Brass Band cover of it in 1997. The KLF would later feature this on their Fuck the Millennium-single. Max Tundra has done a cover in 2006. Last but not least, The Kaiser Chiefs did a cover in 2006 for BBC Radio 1 and quite an excellent one at that.

  • C’hantal – The Realm

    In 1990 three guys, Anthony Mannino, Ralph D’Agostino & Dennis Pino, produced a laid-back, 12-minute long early house track under the name C’hantal entitled The Realm. A song that most likely would have disappeared in the pile of anonymous house tracks that filled the discotheques in the weekends back then. Except it didn’t because of one simple fact: the original vinyl record also featured an acapella track with just the vocals that were featured in the song. That made it perfect for sampling.

    Soon after, the rather pretentious lyrics of the Realm popped upin various other house tracks that would go on to become big club hits. Examples are Speedy J’s Something for your Mind (1991) and The Ultimate Seduction (1992) by The Ultimate Seduction (the guys that made the Turn up the Bass compilations) that even borrow their titles directly from the sample’s speech. The first record to sample the Realm however was the 1990 track Orgasm by Ursula Hybsch.

    After the success of Something for your Mind, many more dance tracks over the years plundered various parts of the sample. Noteable are Wet Like the Rain by The Bronx from 1997, Wrong is Right (1999) by DJ Jose & G-spott and Something 4 Your Mind (2008) by  Audio Junkies. There’s even a dubstep song titled Toasty (2008) by Reflect which briefly uses the sample.  In 1999 an artist named Dejure released the track Sanctuary and oddly enough it doesn’t use a sample but another girl speaking the lyrics. Might as well used the original.

    My personal favourite use of the sample: Something For Your Mind by Speedy J:

  • Human Resource – Dominator

    Let’s talk about a sample that isn’t a sample at all. Lady Gaga can and has been accused of a lot of things involving theft of other people’s music, but one thing that’s hardly ever done in her music is sampling. And by that I mean direct sampling; recording a loop and playing it back in your own track.

    There’s been outrage a few weeks back that Lady Gaga’s new single Born this Way would be creepily similar to Express Yourself (1989) by Madonna. By the way you can say Madonna borrowed parts of that song from Respect Yourself (1972) by The Staple Singers. I don’t want to get into the Born this Way/Express Yourself-discussion, but it reminded me of something going on a few years back when Bad Romance (2009) by Lady Gaga came out in The Netherlands.

    Apart from really hard to distinguish drumloop from Ballanation (2000) by DJ Jean, Bad Romance doesn’t use any samples. But Dutch people instantly recognised the ‘electronic saw’ noise in Bad Romance as a sample from one of Rotterdam’s finest classic rave formations Human Resource and their 1991 hit-single Dominator. If you Google “Lady Gaga Dominator” you can find a pile of discussions in Dutch about whether or not Lady Gaga stole the sample.

    Guess what? She didn’t. That distinct sound is what’s known as a ‘hoover’ among rave-lovers and is actually a preset on many synths, in this case the Roland Alpha Juno. It’s quite commonly used in rave and later hardcore tracks and you can find tons of videos of people recreating it. Even on a Casio.

    The Prodigy became famous for introducing the ‘hoover’-sound into the rave scene with their 1991 song Charly (you can see the Roland-synth in the video) and they certainly didn’t sample it from Human Resource either. It’s interesting considering the Prodigy have sampled a lot of people, but most of their synth-noises come straight from the electronics. I mean, the band is named after a synth, the Moog Prodigy for crying out loud.

    So: no, Lady Gaga did not sample the hoover from Human Resource:

  • The Soul Searchers – Ashley’s Roachclip

    The drum break in The Soul Searchers song Ashley’s Roachclip from 1974 was well on it’s way to become just as hugely sampled as the Amen break. But something stopped its triumphant march: it went out of fashion.

    Like many breaks, it was first used in hiphoptracks in the early eighties. A lot of early hip hop sampled the song at the 11-second mark, like Grandmaster Melle Mel and LL Cool J. Some artists, used the drum break, like Michee Mee & L.A. Luv in 1987 in Run For Cover. The first use of the sample that became famous was however was Eric B. & Rakim’s classic sample track Paid In Full from 1987.

    That may well have spurred on it’s sudden popularity, but not just in hiphop, but regular pop and dance music. The relaxed break suddenly popped up as a backing for Milli Vanilli’s 1988 songs Girl You Know It’s True and Baby, Don’t Forget My Number. Ice MC’s 1990 track Easy not only emulated Milli Vanilli, it also used the same sample. Snap!’s 1990 track Oops Up used the sample too. Interesting to note is that remixes of pop songs used it to make it more danceable, like Roxette’s The Look from 1989 and Caron Wheeler’s Livin The Light from 1990.

    The hits then just started to roll in. PM Dawn in 1991 with Set a Drift On Memory Bliss (which combines it with Spandau Ballet’s True), Unbelievable by EMF in 1991, Sweet Thing by Mick Jagger in 1992, Come Undone by Duran Duran in 1993. Even Moby used it in First Cool Hive from 1995.

    But from there it’s use in popular songs (chart hits in this case) kinda ended. Even though it is still often sampled and used in various ways since then. It seems the beat has become associated with those late 80’s/early 90’s hits and become somewhat unpopular with producers. That and the fact that most people used it ‘as is’ and didn’t slice it up, like it was done with Amen break.

  • Isley Brothers – Footsteps in the Dark

    In 1977 the Isley Brothers released the album Go For Your Guns. Track 2 on that album is the very laid back song Footsteps in the Dark. Three songs were released as singles from that album, but Footsteps in the Dark was not one of them. Nevertheless, the song has gained popularity among hiphop and R&B artists as a source for samples.

    The main reason for this is that Ice Cube sampled the laid back riff in his 1993 track It Was a Good Day and the song became a big hit. It describes a good day in South Central without a single incident, sort of hinting that those days are rare, from a gangsta rapper’s point of view. Since then the track has been sampled countless times, too many to mention here (WhoSampled has a good overview).

    But what’s interesting however is that Ice Cube wasn’t actually the first to use it. Fellow West-Coast gangsta rappers Compton’s Most Wanted released their second album Straight Checkn’ Em in 1991. On it is the track Can I Kill It. Even though it starts out leaning on a sample of Teddy Pendergrass track Love T.K.O. from 1980, halfway it switches samples to the now famous sample of the Isley Brothers. So it’s not completely unlikely that the inspiration to use the sample in It was a Good Day actually came from another West-Coast track.

  • Van Halen – Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love

    Van Halen released Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love in 1978. It has since been covered often, for instance by Minutemen in 1984, by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones in 1991 and more recently by Die Hunns in 2006. Surely the oddest one out cover is the version by Jazzkantine from 2008.

    Apart from that the song has been sampled usually for the opening guitar lick by Eddie van Halen. The 2 Live Crew used it in their unimaginatively titled Fuck Shop from 1989. Scatterbrain jammed it somewhere in 1990 Down with the Ship song (which features tons of famous guitar songs). The most famous sample usage however is by English dance formation  Apollo 440 in their 1997 track Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Dub. Apollo 440 uses another iconic sample in the song. The opening “Let’s go back to the rock and see it in 440” is from the 1971 film (The Andromeda Strain (IMDb) and fits quite well in the clash of a rock song redone by Apollo 440.

    And since I love the Apollo 440 much more, here’s Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Dub:

  • Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy


    Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy

    The year 2006 seems to be the absolute peak for the song Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat. Not so much the original song, which was released in 1984, but as far as covers and sampling of the song goes.

    One of the first instances for the song to pop up is by the Real McCoy’s song Automatic Lover in 1995. It only briefly uses the replayed riff of the original. In 1997 Legato makes a rather simple dance cover.  In 1999 Brice does a cover called Small Town Boy (Runaway).  O.R.N. does a cover in 2004.

    Around 2006 samples and (half-)covers of the song start piling up. Thomas Cajal releases Runaway in 2005 that borrows the tune and Jimmy sommerville’s vocals. A German rap-group K.I.Z. uses a sample in their 2005 rather rude track Hurensohn (whore’s son).  By 2006 the hits start rolling in. Supermode releases a hit song titled Tell Me Why in 2006 that leans heavily on the original. Swedish singer September releases the song Cry For You in 2005 that becomes a hit in 2006 and it too borrows from the Bronski Beat song. Scream Club releases Life of a Heartbreaker in 2006 which features the same riff but played with old school game computer sounds. By 2007 even Daft Punk catches up an incorporates the riff in their live set. Greek Cypriot singer Mixalis Xatzigiannis subtly uses  the riff in his 2007 song Etsi Se Thelo. In 2007 José González did a cover for the B-side of Down the Line. Sharon Corr (of The Corrs) did a cover.

    For some strange reason, there’s also lots of metal covers for the song. In 1999 metal band Depressive Age does a metal cover. Another metal cover is recorded by Paradise Lost in 2002. Atrocity did a cover version in 2008. Female-fronted metal band Delain did a cover in 2009.