Tag: wikipedia

  • Gary Moore – Still Got the Blues

    Gary Moore died yesterday so I decided to switch the post I had in mind for today around to make room for this one.

    Gary Moore was undeniably a very creative musician who had good control over his instrument of choice the guitar. And though he wrote quite a bulk of original work, his most famous song of all, Still Got the Blues, seems to borrow very slightly from an older song. Check out the song Nordrach by Jud’s Gallery at around 6:18 and 9:16 (source: whosampled.com). It sounds very identical.

    The leader of the band thought so too and sued Gary Moore in 2008 (why so late?) and won. Gary Moore denied having heard the songs and while the court acknowledged he probably didn’t steal it on purpose he may have heard it on the radio or live back when it was played in 1974, even though the music had never been put on a record. Honestly, even if Gary Moore did hear it, forgot it, but remembered it sub-consciencely when he recorded his song, I think the claim is a bit too far. But such are copyright laws.

    Gary Moore (1952-2011) – Still Got the Blues

  • Primal Scream – Loaded

    In honour of the International Film Festival Rotterdam that’s going on right now, not only a posts about samples from other songs, but also from film!

    In 1990 Primal Scream released the song Loaded. Most prominently, it features a sample from their own song I’m losing more than I’ll ever have from 1989. Whosampled.com says the bass-line is replayed from the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil from 1968. You’ll also hear a drumloop taken from the 1989 white label remix of What I Am by Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians. On a side note, you might recognise that song from the version that Tin Tin Out and former Spice Girl Emma Bunton covered in 1999.

    But there’s also some spoken word samples in it. The most striking comes from the the 1966 film The Wild Angels (imdb + trailer). A biker film in which Peter Fonda plays a biker that tells off a preacher and says they want to be free to do what they wanna do …  and they wanna get loaded.

  • Hey Joe (Please don’t go to town)

    Some songs don’t have an original, or it has become impossible to trace who wrote it or performed it first. You’d think this was just the case for any folk song pre-dating 1900, but it even happens for more recent classics. Take Hey Joe. Most people will say that the original (the one they know best) is by Jimi Hendrix, but this is not the case. Jimi Hendrix covered it and gave it his own spin as was usual in those days. But who did he cover it from?

    Hey Joe was a song that emerged in the early sixties and become one of those songs every band covered. Even the WikiPedia article can’t seem to figure out who wrote the original. The earliest know recording of Hey Joe is by the Leaves from 1965. Jimi Hendrix recorded his version in 1966. Some say it was a traditional song. The first copyright on it was claimed by a traveling musician Billy Roberts. He however may have composed the song out of mix of different originals, including Baby, Please Don’t Go To Town from 1955 by (his girlfriend) Niella Miller.

    After the success of the sixties versions, just about every body seems to have done a cover of the song:  Tim Rose (1969), Deep Purple, The Who (1989), Patti Smith (with a really awful solo), The Offspring (1991), Type-O-Negative (1992), Ice-T (1994, with his band Bodycount), Willy Deville, an all-star band, ZZ Top, Seal, Vai, Satriani, May and Walsh, and many many many many many more.  It makes you wonder how rich Billy Roberts actually got from the copyright, whether he did at all.

  • Radiohead – Creep

    This post is somewhat of a follow-up on the post about Coldplay. Sometimes a song is so coincidentally similar, that despite it being an original work, people have to be credited because otherwise there will be lawsuits.

    Radiohead are often praised as being musical geniuses who have made ‘difficult’ and ‘experimental’ music in a time where recycled pop-tunes reign. But even their biggest and most covered hit, Creep from 1992,  is not a isolated work of brilliance.

    The songs credits list Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood as co-writers of the song.  Both of them are song-writers who have quite a few well-known songs from the sixties and beyond. One of the hit songs they wrote together is The Air that I Breathe from 1974 that was performed by The Hollies.

    While most people will recognise the subtle similarities in feel and even some chord progressions. And while Radiohead never confirmed they were inspired by the song by the Hollies, they were forced to put the credits on it regardless.

    Of course a whole string of people covered the Radiohead version. It was included in Rodeohead (a country & western cover/medley of Radiohead by Hard ‘n Phirm) in 2005. Tears for Fears have done it, Richard Cheese has done it, Amanda Palmer has done it, even Korn have done it and many many more.

  • Chic – Good Times

    If you want a heated debate among music lovers, then suggest that Queen stole their idea for Another One Bites the Dust from Good Times by Chic. Or sampled them even. But did they?

    Here’s the facts. Chic’s Good Times came out in 1979. Another One Bites the Dust came out in 1980 an was written by bass-player John Deacon. According to Wikipedia: Chic co-founder Bernard Edwards stated, “…that Queen record came about because that Queen bass player… spent some time hanging out with us at our studio”.

    If you analyse the notes quite clinically, you can easily say that they are not exactly the same, but the arrangement of both is at least similar. The Queen version is much more simple. Still, on WhoSampled.com the comment-sections are filled when Queen as a sampler is not only linked to Chic, but also the track Christmas Rappin’ by Kurtis Blow from 1979. So Queen sampled Kurtis Blow? You could even argue that Rapture by Blondie was ‘sampled’ from Chic. Or Kurtis Blow.

    The versions by Chic, Queen, Blondie and Kurtis Blow have all been sampled so many times, (including the hold it now!-lyric by Kurtis Blow) it wouldn’t even be funny to list them all here. A few are very notable however.

    Of course the Sugarhill Gang’s Rappers Delight from 1979 was one of the first hip hop hits. As a result that track has been sampled a zillion times also (Hotel, Motel, Holiday-Inn) and the entry for that song alone on WhoSampled is two pages long.  The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel by Grandmaster Flash from 1981 mixes, Chic, Queen, Blondie and quite a few others together in one track. KRS-One’s Step Into a World (Rapture’s Delight) from 1997 borrows it’s slightly differently sung vocal line break Rapture by Blondie, but it’s ironic that the Rapture’s Delight references both the Blondie song, but also Rappers Delight, even though KRS-One doesn’t sample that at all in the song.

  • Slim Smith – I’ll Never Let You Go

    Here’s a sample that has toured the world. Initially we start our trip in Jamaica where reggae artist Slim Smith records the track I’ll Never Let You Go for his album Just a Dream. I have varying sources that say the album was released in 1972 or 1968 or simply don’t know. Likewise the sources are unclear about his death, one says he tried to break into his parents house and cut his his arms on the glass and bled to death, the other that he committed suicide in1972.

    Regardless of how he dies, the track stayed in Jamaica when in 1984 Jah Screechy samples I’ll Never Let You Go in his dancehall song Walk and Skank. The track borrows the bassline, but ads very distinctive vocals and a piano. As soon as you hear those, you might start to recognise the track.

    Moving over to the UK in 1992, the DJ duo SL2 (Slipmatt & Lime) release the breakbeat track On A Ragga Tip on the legendary XL Recordings label (which also made The Prodigy big). That track borrows the bassline, piano and the vocals by Jah Screechy and ads a few instruments and mixes them into a breakbeat tracks that filled many a dance floor.

    In the weirdest twist of this post, the track pops up in India where the Bollywood film Stunttman (with two t’s) is released in 1994. One of the film’s musical numbers is the track Amma Dekh Tera Munda Bigda Jaaye which borrows the vocal melody for its chorus, obviously inspired by SL2’s hit from two years earlier.

    Last but not least, the track pops up in The Netherlands in 2004, where the Bass Solution DJ Team remixes a track titled by Ragga Trip by the Hardstylerz on a hardcore/hardstyle compilation in 2004. Obviously, it also borrows most of its samples from the SL2 version.

    Little did Slim Smith knew before his death in 1972 that his track would eventually end up as a dancehall, breakbeat, Bollywood and Hardstyle tune. Since the Slim Smith video can’t be embedded, here’s my favourite version, SL2 – On a Ragga Tip:

  • Thievery Corporation – Resolution

    Here’s a really quick one I submitted to whosampled.com recently:

    In 2002 American lounge/triphop-duo Thievery Corporation released their album The Richest Man in Babylon. On it is the instrumental track Resolution. Around the same time another American triphop band named Etro Anime is making a small name for itself, though their effort seems to mainly spark interest in the Netherlands. One of its members, Liset Alea (who doesn’t even have a wiki-page), left the group to go solo.

    When finally she releases an album in 2005, it’s on the Dutch branch of EMI music. It’s titled No Sleep after the title track and first single No Sleep. It’s produced by Yoad Nova, who also did work for the likes of the Sugababes (among others involved on Freak Like Me, which has been mentioned here before), Bryan Adams and Sophe Ellis-Bextor. Right from the beginning of the song, what do we hear? Thievery Corperation – Resolution:

  • Classics IV – Spooky

    In 1966 saxophone Mike Sharpe and his band recorded an instrumental song titled Spooky. About a year later, the track found its way into the charts and got noticed. A band that mainly played covers named the Classics IV, decided to record a cover of the song also titled Spooky which was released in 1967 and became a huge hit in 1968. The Classics IV added something to their cover that wasn’t on the original, apart from their own instrumentation: lyrics.

    The Classics IV track spawned a number of covers. In 1969 Carl Tjader recorded an again instrumental xylophone cover of which you can wonder whether it was based on the Sharpe or the Classics IV version.  In 1970 Dusty Springfield recorded a cover of Spooky with the lyrics of the Classics IV version. In 1980 Lydia Lunch did her take on Spooky. Several other bands have played or recorded a cover like REM, Imogen  Heap, the Puppini Sisters and many others. The most intriguing ‘cover’ of Spooky is by a band named the Atlanta Rhythm Section in 1979. The band consisted of former members of the Classics IV and another band, the Candymen.

    The song didn’t go unnoticed when sampling started. When former model Naomi Campbell released an album, Spooky was used in the track Looks Swank (which I can’t listen to thanks to Sony being a dick on YouTube).  Barry Adamson used a clearly recognisable sample of Spooky on his 1996 track Something Wicked This Way Comes. The track found its way onto the soundtrack of the bizarre David Lynch film Lost Highway in 1997. Also in 1996, The Bloodhound Gang used Spooky in their song Why is Everybody Always Pickin’ on Me?

    Though technically speaking the Classics IV version of Spooky isn’t the original, it did birth a lot of versions and samples:

  • David Bowie – Fame

    I just submitted something to whosampled.com I found obviously missing. I was actually shocked it wasn’t on there. Today we’re doing a cover AND a sample! And a whole string of other artist who borrowed the same sample.

    In 1998 the band Limp Bizkit broke through to a major audience with their single Faith taken from their 1997 album Three Dollar Bill, Yall$. The song Faith is a cover from George Michael’s original version from 1987. Limp Bizkit went on the next few years to score a string of hits, including the song Take a Look Around which I mentioned two weeks ago.

    As sort of an in-between-albums thing, Limp Bizkit released a remix album titled New Old Songs in 2001 which featured new remixes of their old songs (go figure). One was released as a single and was a remix of their very first big hit: Faith. The new version was entitled Faith/Fame Remix.  Why? because instead of just doing the cover again, they also mashed up the riff from David Bowie’s 1975 track Fame (co-written by John Lennon) into it and had Fred Durst sing the word ‘Faith’ in the same manner Bowie sang ‘Fame’. Is it a cover? Is it a sample? Or is it both?

    They’re not the first and certainly not the last to cover that track though.  James Brown borrowed the tune in the same year Bowie released it in his track Hot. Public Enemy used it as a small hidden snippet of it in their 1988 track Night of the Living Baseheads. EPMD used a very slowed down sample of Fame in their It Wasn’t Me, It Was The Fame in 1989. When Vanilla Ice had dropped off the radar and released another album, he used Fame in his own track also titled Fame in 1994. Dr. Dre used it quite prominently (is it a cover? is it a sample?)  in 1996 track Fame. Even Jay-Z borrows the lyrics in the 2001 track Takeover. To top it off, Lady Gaga sampled one her heroes and lifted the riff from Fame in her 2009 track Fancy Pants.

    Here’s the original: David Bowie – Fame.

  • Bob James – Sign of the Times

    A particular song by Bob James, Nautilus, has been sampled by dozens of hiphop (and other) artists. Since this post would be too long if I went into the entire list, there’s another song I want to focus on: Sing of the Times from 1981.

    It first re-appeared as a sampled in the 1991 De La Soul track Keepin’ the Faith. A few years after in 1994 it probably made it’s most famous appearance in Regulate by Warren G. and Nate Dogg. That track also samples Michael McDonald’s 1982 track I keep forgetting and borrows the ‘Let Me Ride‘ lyric from Parliament’s Mothership Connection (1975).

    In 1995 the sample pops up again in Menelik & No Sé’s track Quelle Aventure, which also uses a sample from Pino D’Angio’s 1980 track Ma Quale Idea (did I hear anyone say Don’t call me baby?).

    Finally in 1998 Buzzy Bus also takes on Bob James and puts it in their track Jump. This tracks also samples the Jungle Brother’s I’ll House You with it’s lyric “jump, jump, a little higher” (and I may need to devote a post to that track as well some time in the future). You may know the Buzzy Bus guys (Koen Groeneveld & Addy van der Zwan) under their various release names: The Klubbheads, The Ultimate Seduction, their remixes for the Turn Up The Bass compilations and a dozen more names.

    But forget about G-Funk and Club House for now, here’s Bob James – Sign of the Times: