Some people mistake musical perfection for having musically perfect instruments, perfect arrangements and perfect recordings. Despite all that, it’s usually the imperfections, the grainy, the raw sound that stands out. At the end of the day it’s about the sound that is created, not how it is created.
A perfect example of imperfect instruments creating something marvellous is Diego Stocco’s Bassoforte. Take an old piano, a guitar neck, some DIY and wood and record samples from this bizarre instrument and you end up with something like this:
In 1964 Gloria Jones released a single My Bad Boy’s Coming Home. Since the single was not a commercial success, it’s B-side Tainted Love went unnoticed too. That song got a rematch in 1976 went it was re-recorded and re-released as a single of its own, but again failed to gain any commercial success.
Soft Cell made their own version of Tainted Love. When it was released in 1981 it became a huge international hit This is the reason why a lot of people still think the Soft Cell-version is the original, even when they hear the Gloria Jones version, which is not locked into the collective memory of the general public.
Over the years there have been dozens of covers (mostly of the Soft Cell version), the most popular being the Marilyn Manson’s version. Eventually the Soft Cell version itself got sampled for a track by Rihanna, which effectively destroys the connection the song had to its original.
All aboard the sample train, this is going to be a long ride.
Let’s start in 1948. Roebuck Staples forms a gospel group with his family called The Staple Singers. Not even mentioned in their Wikipedia-page is the fact that in 1955 they released a recording of the traditional gospel song This May be the Last Time in a blues style.
Ten years later in 1965, The Rolling Stones ‘borrowed’ most of the lyrics for their single The Last Time. This was not uncommon in those days (see: When the Levee Breaks). On a side note: also not uncommon was for the big bands of that era (The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who) to cover each other’s songs. So when half of the Rolling Stones were sentenced to prison for drug charges in 1967, The Who recorded their cover version of the song out of support and a bit of irony.
Back on track, in 1966 Andrew Oldham, former manager/producer of the Rolling Stones created an orchestrated version of the Last Time and released it on the 1966 album The Rolling Stones Songbook. Even though the song barely resembles the original, copyrights were attributed to the Stones. This became an important issue decades later in 1997 when The Verve released their song Bitter Sweet Symphony. It clearly uses a sample of the Oldham version, which they licensed. Strangely enough however they got sued by The Rolling Stones, because according to them they used a lot more of their own song than the license had specified. Eventually, the Verve also got sued by Andrew Oldham. The result was that all of the credits on Bitter Sweet Symphony now point to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, writers of the Rolling Stones song The Last Time. Which in itself is ‘stolen’ from a 1955 song. An irony also pointed out in the sample-documentary RIP, a Remix Manifesto.
The Verve’s song has led to many other artists sampling their track again. Our last stop on this long ride ends with just one of them: Mark van Dale’s Water Verve. Although it’s arguable that this track was probably sampled from the Oldham version, the fact that it was released just a year after Bitter Sweet Symphony should be proof enough that it was riding The Verve’s popularity wave. Oh and the title Water Verve is a play on words, since the word waterverf not only sounds like Water Verve, it means “water paint” in Dutch.
In case all the hype had completely slipped past you on just about every social media, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, Mariqueen Maandig (also Trent’s wife) and Atticus Ross have been working together in a project called How To Destroy Angels. As of June 1st 2010, their first EP together has been released for free on their website. For an additional fee you can get even higher quality versions. Though fans of NIN are still in debate on whether this is a truely awesome release or a disappointing one, I’m in the first camp. I can recommend to just download it and give it a listen. It’s free.
In this week’s Origin of Samples-post a classic case of who’s stealing from who. In 1991 a relatively unknown Seattle band Pearl Jam released an album entitled ‘Ten‘. One track from that album would go on to be one of the anthems of its generation at the explosion of the grunge hype: ‘Alive‘.
Only a year later, on a proverbial attic, some guys got together and made hardcore gabber under the name Neophyte. Eventually a rock guitarist named Jarno Butter (whom I’ve shared some classes with in highschool, but that is a different story) joined their ranks to play with them during live sets. They released many tracks that gained international fame in an underground scene. One of the tracks, released in 1996 under their happy hardcore artist name Bodylotion, was entitled Always Harcore. Although in entirely different genre and not directly sampled from the original, it’s clear the vocal melody from Always Harcore comes directly from Alive.
It’s not uncommon in the hardcore gabber scene to use tons of samples from other music and film quotes (especially if they contain the word ‘fuck’). What isn’t very common however to sample from their own ranks. And that’s basically what German Europop-band Scooter did in 2004 when they ripped the chorus from Always Hardcore and crammed it into their own hit single One (Always Hardcore). Even though pretty much every Scooter song is based on another song, you can still wonder if they knew the original original.
To what extent Neophyte stole/were inspired by Pearl Jam and Scooter stole/were inspired by Neophyte or Pearl Jam, I leave you to judge. Here’s the original Alive:
There’s a number of drum samples that are have become the grand daddy’s of entire genres and have been extensively used in hiphop, dance and such. I could talk about the Amen break, but luckily there’s an excellent documentary on that. There’s a more peculiar history surrounding the drum loop from Led Zeppelin’s When the Levee Breaks. Or more specifically, an old blues song called When the Levee Breaks.
In 1927 the levee did break and cause the Great Mississippi Flood. Two years after, Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie wrote, performed and recorded a song entitled When the Levee Breaks. The lyrics deal with losing everything in the flood and having to move from South to the North (Chicago), thus also exporting many blues musicians and blues lovers there.
More than 40 years later in 1971, Led Zeppelin dusts off the original and makes their own reworked cover version, in essence ‘sampling’ it and making it into something new. On drums as always is legendary drummer John Bonham. The track opens with just a few seconds of his drums.
The fact that it’s just the drums however makes it ideal for sampling and when sampling takes a rise starting in the late 80’s Bonham’s drums end up on many, many records. Not just whole but cut up as a breakbeat as well. Just to name a few where the drum loop is intact: Eminem’s Kim, Coldcut & Steinski’s Beats & Pieces and Enigma’s Gravity of Love.
The ultimate bit of irony is that while all the music I linked above is on YouTube, the YouTube video containing the original 1929 version of When the Levee Breaks has been pulled due to copyright claims by Sony, despite it being way pas it copyright date. So for now, here’s the sampled ‘original’ by Led Zeppelin:
An interesting story surrounds the soundtrack of the otherwise rightfully forgotten film The Adventurers(1970). The music for the soundtrack is by Antonio Carlos Jobim and is arranged and conducted by Eumir Deodato (remember this name!). In the same year famous producer/composer Quincy Jones decided to re-score the whole thing and produced his own funked up version of the album. It was recorded by the Ray Brown Orchestra, featuring Tom Scott and … Eumir Deodato. On that album is the the track Go Down Dying, which you can hear in the YouTube clip below. You’ll instantly recognise the intro as the main theme from Björk’s 1993 track Human Behaviour. Even though apparently there was some initial fuss about the usage of the sample, things seem to have been straightened out fine. Cause guess who ended up remixing the Björk song Isobel from her next album and did most of the orchestral arrangements for the album she did after that; Homogenic ? Yep: Eumir Deodato. Coincidentally the songs Human Behaviour, Isobel and Bachelorette (from Homogenic) are part of a trilogy of songs spanned over three albums. In a way Eumir Deodato has contributed to all three songs.
Not specifically music related, but certainly DYI: Graffiti artists Banksy’s film project. When will this be realeased in the Netherlands? Interesting story about this film is that he offered a piece of art to a band named Exit Through The Gift Shop Door to change their name so he could use the title. They accepted.
HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS Rumour has it, that’s the new pet project of Trent Reznor and his wife. The sound samples on the page seem to confirm that Trent at least has to have a minor hand in this.
Some great songs lean on samples of even better songs. One example is Labi Siffre’s I got the (blues). It’s a great summer night soul song, you can put on and hang back. Until about halfway through the song there’s a small break and something familiar starts up. And then you realise you’re listening to Eminem’s Hi… my name is .
More than a year ago, I already praised what the Brett Domino Trio was doing in my personal blog. He did an excellent cover of Michael Jackson’s Beat It, before Michael Jackson had even died. I’ll repeat it: the nerdy act may secretly all be a gimmick, but regardless Brett Domino & friends prove that musically even with the most simple means and instruments, you can make something made of epic win. And here he is doing it again with a medley of Justin Timberlake songs:
