h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Pete Waterman once famously from the Dock denounced sample based music as theft pure and simple.

I have wanted to start a thread about this for ages but I have never got around to it. Inspired by trawling through the backlog of the "UK vs US music" bohemath I thought I would finally get to it!!

A case in point, the "Grey Album" by Dangermouse (now of Gnarls Berkley fame). Now the truth is I didn't much care for it, but I cannot see how anyone with any sort of a musical ear could not see that it was a "new" bit of music quite distinct from its sources material.

I am a huge fan of the "Radio Soulwax" 2 many DJs mash up stuff and it is really distinct from its source material.

My is that when sampling is done well, the orgiginal artists are no more responsible for the new stuff than Fender are responsible for Jimi Hendrixes output.

Discuss!

Nope, it isn't stealing, no more than the usual suspect chord patterns in contemporary music are stealing.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM (The now infamous Pachelbel Rant.)

Ahem.

Sampling has been responsible for several different new styles of music. How much more creative can you get than that?

That is helluva good.

it's stealing.

Care to elaborate as to why?

It should be remembered that, from a commercial point of view, any well-known sample will have been through a sample clearing department an the original composers and performances will usually be credited and paid (see the list of credits on The Prodigy's 'Firestarter': four members of The Art Of Noise credited for a 'Yeah Yeah Yeah'!)

EDIT: I know the question was about creative, rather than commercial, theft but felt I should head that one off at the pass!

Antigravitas, it might be a good idea to start signing your posts or something. All these name changes are confusing!

I see nothing wrong with using samples. It doesn't remove the creativity. Although, to take a pop music example, Kanye West's 'Stronger' was, IMO, made by the Daft Punk sample. Without it it wouldn't have had such success.

ferret. this is one of those matters where the choice is a really long and detailed answer or the short yes or no.

since any long answer will likely persuade no one of the opposite view, much less prevent the practice itself, i elected to go the short route.

no disrespect intended and i have no doubt you WILL get some long answers. i just wanted to be counted on the appropriate side.

Ach, if only h2g2 had polls.

Well I have got to be honest Antigravas I simply cannot see the point in replying to a thread if you do not want to go into the reasons why.

I am not having a dig BTW....

From the opening post it must be pretty clear what my view is. I am interested in hearing the other side, so please, please elaborate on your position.

FB

P.S. It is a two TTs ferret !

I have an album by a band that I believe to be a Black Sabbath tribute act. Although not strictly speaking sampling as such, they do mix well known rock riffs (not by any means all Black Sabbath) with the tunes and lyrics of ABBA songs. Hearing the riff from My Woman from Tokyo mixed with Does Your Mother Know certainly gives it an extra edge

Who says stealing and creativity are mutually exclusive?

By the nature of the job, thieves can be forced to be very creative indeed. Isn't it possible to steal something and then do something creative with it?

As a direct result of this thread I have been listening to Radio Soulwax pt 2 this morning and I think it is a flicking master peice.

ferrett. if you send me back the post i will refund your money. on behalf of all the first person pronouns involved with me, accept my apologies that the posting was not to your complete satisfaction.

No, no, no....

I really wasn't having a go, and I am sorry if you felt that way.



But I really, really, want to know why you (and others) feel it is stealing. That is kind of the point in posting here I think, I like to explore what other people think.

So please, give us a clue

no apology needed. i am larfing this end. it is simply too big a question to do justice to. i take an old school view of plagiarism based on academic guidelines. doesn't matter if someone lets you borrow their essay/homework. and if a journalist cobbled together a report from diverse press releases i would be equally scathing. and in the end why do it? in the modern world you can make and record your own drum loops and other musical sounds at little cost on any computer. and the honest answer to that question will lead you to why it really is stealing. because the people who build stuff from samples usually CAN'T produce their own stuff from scratch.

A lot of people who use samples are very capable of creating their own music from scratch but get inspired by a loop. Moby is a very talented musician in his field but used old blues tunes and built something completely new out of them. If he hadn't done that the original samples wouldn't have been heard by the millions of people that he introduced them to and one of the most popular albums of the last twenty years wouldn't have been recorded (for the record, I don't like it much.)

how could you possibly know what these guys are capable of doing if they manifestly aint doing it?

as for reviving blues, the great blues revival of the 60s put old bluesmen back on stage in their own right. guys like missisppi john hurt. you cannot find stuff that was isn't lost and i doubt moby found anything.

typo hell. 'wasn't or isn't'