Music Sampling and its Effects on the Music Industry and Music Culture.
I.
Introduction
A. Traditions of appropriation
B. Modern industrial copyright control
C. The Concept
II.
Hip-Hop
A. Roots in Jamaican dub
B. Breakbeat sampling
C. Landmark albums
1. It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
2. Paul’s Boutique
D. Landmark cases
1. Grand Upright Music, Ltd. v. Warner Brothers Records, Inc.
2. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Case No. 01-00412
III.
Bastard Pop
A. Early precedents
B. Plunderphonics
C. Negativland and the JAMs
D. Modern mash-ups
1. The Grey Album
IV. Conclusion
People all over the world have always continued their culture through some sort of oral tradition. As these folk stories and songs are passed down, the younger generations update and alter them by changing lyrics appropriately, or borrowing chord progressions as a way of paying homage. In this way, reverence is given to the past, while the present is being discussed. This happens in all forms of art—for example, Walt Disney’s creations since the late 20’s have used themes and ideas from not only folklore, but the recent past in pop culture (Lessig, Free Culture, 21-24).
The modern equivalent to this convention is music sampling. Sampling is the practice of, digitally or otherwise, using an existing sound recording as a basis or addition to a new musical piece. This “new” piece can either be the background music for a hip-hop song, or an entire composition itself made up completely of other songs.
Whereas “no one much cared about the centuries old tradition of appropriation in classical [and folk] music,” sampling these days is a confusing, litigious, and overly costly creative venture (Negativland). There is a large amount of music from the past couple decades that is made fully or in part from other music, and most of it is innovatively done. But the record industries apparently do not care about “what's good for music,” but rather “how they can control their copyrights” (Dean), and block many genius pieces of music from ever reaching fans. Legal action is taken against not only single songs, but entire “mash-up” albums—all because the music industry sees the “very act of creating [this type of] art [as] legally fraught” (Lessig 196).
The audio art group “Tape-beatles” describes their motivation as:
an interest in making music without the use of conventional musical instruments; using recording technology itself as a creative, expressive medium with unique capabilities; Plagiarism®, or the notion that recontextualization of previously ‘finished’ works can be done ethically and can in itself constitute authorship; and making use of contemporary media to critique culture and social milieux.
This is an accurate representation of the concept of sample-based music. In the last half-decade, multiple new technologies have emerged that allow for new music to be pieced together from old music. The samples can either be manipulated and distorted as to be unrecognizable, played as virtual instruments, or just looped in their original form in order to “give [the new artist’s] song a certain feel or emphasis” and “link their song in this manner to the earlier song in the listener’s mind” (“Music and Copyright”). Since the 1950’s, the practice of music sampling has popped up in various forms, and spread from the groups of people cutting up tape loops and Jamaican DJs toasting over instrumental reggae records, to almost anybody with a computer and audio editing software.
The type of sampling that is most familiar with the average person is the type used in hip-hop, or rap music. In particular, mainstream rap is often criticized for its seemingly uncreative “rip-offs” of classic songs, as in the works of Vanilla Ice and Puff Daddy (Rocky). But, as one program on Pacifica Radio focused on music sampling argues, “Sampled rap could almost be viewed as a kind of folk music, in which the past creativity of the community is incorporated into new creative work” (Thilman).
The birthplace of hip-hop style sampling was Jamaica. In the 1970’s, a form of reggae developed that was called dub. A dub record was primarily an instrumental version of a reggae song, often with echo and reverb effects, and sometimes with additional instrumentation. Dub was therefore the beginning of the “remix” and “the idea of the mixing desk as an instrument and the DJ/remixer as an artist in his own right” (dub.ca). These records were played at dance parties called “sound systems,” and some DJs would “toast”—an early form of rapping—over the instrumental dub songs. When the Jamaican-born Kool DJ Herc brought this aesthetic to New York City, hip-hop was born.
Kool DJ Herc, along with Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, started hip-hop in uptown New York with block parties similar to the Jamaican sound systems. While “working with sound systems as if they were musical instruments,” the early DJs integrated “sampling of favorite passages from well-known recordings, along with samplings of music little known or previously unknown” (Gates Jr. et al. 79). Kool DJ Herc in particular invented “breakbeat DJing…by isolating and repeating the ‘breaks,’ or most danceable parts, of funk records” (Kurutz).
This legacy of sampling continued on through the mainstream success of hip-hop. “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang was the first commercially successful hip-hop record, and was “built on a sample of Chic's disco hit Good Times” (Heard). According to the BBC, the band being sampled in this case was excited when they heard this new innovation of their song—but were only okay with it on the condition that it was “only something that was distributed among DJs and not for sale” (Heard). Chic did not pursue the legality of sampling excessively, but settled out of court with the owners of Sugarhill Gang’s recording.
Two classic sample-based albums in hip-hop history that are often mentioned in arguments against corporate crackdown are “It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back” by Public Enemy, and “Paul’s Boutique” by The Beastie Boys (“Why Sampling Rights Matter”). These two albums were released in 1988 and 1989, respectively—years before the record industry filed multiple lawsuits against sample-based music in the 90’s and 00’s. These two albums made such extensive use of sampling that each song can contain snippets of dozens of other songs (Benjamin). The sources used for the samples ranged from a multitude of soul and funk artists—especially James Brown—to rock artists like David Bowie, Queen, and Slayer (“Rap Sample FAQ”). “Paul’s Boutique” ranked 12th and “It Takes A Nation” came in at 2nd on Spin Magazine’s “100 Greatest Albums 1985-2005,” but these albums were so sample-laden that they “simply could not be created with the current legal regime” (“Why Sampling Rights Matter”).
This current regime is thanks to two landmark cases in hip-hop sampling. The first, Grand Upright Music, Ltd. v. Warner Brothers Records, Inc., came just two years after the release of “Paul’s Boutique.” This was the first high profile case in regards to unlicensed sampling, and came about when rapper Biz Markie sampled Gilbert O’Sullivan’s song “Alone Again (Naturally).” Far from being the first or only person in hip-hop to use an uncleared sample, Markie lost the case and was made into an example. After this case, commercial rap artists would have to jump through the legal hoops in order to obtain licenses to use one or two samples in a song; albums containing multiple collages of samples would become “impossibly expensive and difficult to release” (Farnsworth et al.).
That precedent was reinforced more recently by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case No. 01-00412 in 2004. This suit centered around a two second long sample from the Funkadelic song “Get Off Your Ass and Jam”—which, interestingly enough, was also used on the Public Enemy track “Bring the Noise” from “It Takes A Nation Of Millions…” In this case, the gangsta rap group N.W.A. lowered the pitch of this sample and looped it for sixteen bars in their song “100 Miles and Runnin’.” The use of the sample in this song is an example of an attempt to obtain that “certain feel or emphasis” (“Music and Copyright”), as explicated in this excerpt from the court case:
The portion of the song at issue here is an arpeggiated chord – that is, three notes that, if struck together, comprise a chord but instead are played one at a time in very quick succession – that is repeated several times at the opening of “Get Off.” The arpeggiated chord is played on an unaccompanied electric guitar. The rapidity of the notes and the way they are played produce a high-pitched, whirling sound that captures the listener’s attention and creates anticipation of what is to follow.
The decision came out against sampling, with the ultimatum for artists of “get a license or do not sample,” and claiming that they “do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way.” Many artists, however, do see this as censorship, and music activism site Downhill Battle started a campaign encouraging protestors to create new pieces of music with the Funkadelic sample in question being the sole source of material (“Why Sampling Rights Matter”).
In Downhill Battle’s “Three Notes and Runnin’” campaign, new music was crafted by chopping up, looping, and otherwise manipulating an existing recording. This is the basic idea behind the other major form of sample-based music—bastard pop.
There are a few major differences between hip-hop and bastard pop—the most defining one being that while hip-hop usually has an emcee recording lyrics on top of a sampled beat, bastard pop songs are made exclusively out of samples. There is usually no extra instrumentation or lyrical content provided by the composer, who instead uses his or her creativity to artfully arrange the elements in a new and unheard manner.
Although recent digital technology has increased the ease and accessibility of this underground scene of hybrid music, the earliest predecessors of this genre date back to the days of magnetic tape. “The Flying Saucer,” a track assembled by Dickie Goodman and Bill Buchanan and released in 1959, was “probably the first successful use of ‘sampling’ in popular music” (Farnsworth et al.). The duo created the record by splicing together tapes from a recording of “War of the Worlds” and a slew of pop songs. The “fallout” from this song was actually close to a dream scenario for a copyright infringing song—Goodman and Buchanan’s label reached an agreement with the sample-sources’ copyright holders, the single accomplished nearly platinum status, and the samples it contained exposed listeners to new music: effectively raising record sales (Farnsworth et al.).
Unfortunately, just about every other producer of bastard pop either runs into legal trouble, or away from any sort of mainstream success. This is another ideal that separates the genre from hip-hop: mash-up artists generally believe that their “art is not defined as a business” (Negativland), and a lot of this type of music is released on the internet in a non-profit way, so the “bootleggers” are not looking to make any money from their art. The first rule of an online forum for the dissemination of these songs and albums, “Get Your Bootleg On,” is “do not post links to commercially available material” (> 'mcsleazy' <). In some cases mash-up singles or albums are released commercially, but then they are usually more prone to legal attack.
The bastard pop scene, over the past four decades, has evolved significantly. In the 70’s and 80’s, Canadian artist John Oswald practiced what he termed “plunderphonics,” or making new compositions by cutting up and manipulating single songs (Oswald). His album of the same name, for example, contained his mind’s creative reinterpretations of varied artists such as Michael Jackson, Metallica, and Bach.
John Oswald was a major influence for the next generation of sound collagists, which included the groups Negativland and The JAMs. Both sample-based bands faced lawsuits during their careers for commercially released albums containing uncleared samples of U2 and ABBA, respectively.
Modern bastard pop came to fruition in the beginning of the new millennium, and centered around the ethos proposed by columnist David Quantick that pop music reuses ideas so often, that “the perfect pop song could be written by [combining] the best…ideas into one track” (Dæmon). This concept of “pop eating itself” spawned the generic mash-up song, following the style of “A+B”—taking the “a capella” vocals of one song and mixing them with the instrumental “beat” of a completely different song (M-1). The stand-out track of this style from 2001 was “A Stroke of Genie-Us” by Freelance Hellraiser, which merged Christina Aguilera and The Strokes.
A common theme in bastard pop is the pairing of songs or artists that would normally be the antithesis of each other, or at least not thought of having any connection. This especially comes through with bootleg “concept albums.” The first one of these to make big news was “The Grey Album,” produced by DJ Danger Mouse. When mainstream rapper Jay-Z released an a capella version of his “The Black Album” (Rashbaum), many independent producers and remixers took advantage of the wonderful opportunity—under normal settings they would have to use audio editing programs to adjust equalizer settings in an attempt to isolate vocal tracks. DJ Danger Mouse made beats based off of The Beatles’ “The White Album” to accompany Jay-Z’s raps. This was more than a simple A+B mash—these beats were artistically crafted using micro samples of drums and instrumentation from The Beatles’ tunes. Not acknowledging The Grey Album’s artistry, the record company EMI claimed to hold copyrights on The Beatles’ songs and gave DJ Danger Mouse a cease & desist order. The “music activism” website Downhill Battle organized a protest dubbed “Grey Tuesday.” “On February 24, 2004 approximately 170 websites hosted a full copy of the Grey Album, in spite of… the attempt to censor [The Grey Album]” (Grey Tuesday). The controversy over the album actually led to DJ Danger Mouse gaining eventual success in producing the group Gorillaz on EMI, the very record label that took legal action against him.
Lawrence Lessig, the leader of the free culture and creative commons movements:
Creativity and innovation always builds on the past.
The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.
Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past.
Ours is less and less a free society. (Keynote Address)
While its often said that “where you ‘stand’ on the copyright issues of [music sampling] often depends on where you ‘sit’” (“Music and Copyright”), as the institutions and industries that place such a heavy lockdown on the past grow older, a younger resistance is coming of age. If strict, overbearing copyright enforcement continues, then classic prohibition syndrome will kick in—and as more people support a free culture and sampling rights, “the less [they will] respect
the law” that outlaws them (Lessig, Free Culture, 212). The big companies will try to leave legacies in harsh legislative and judicial battles, but the independent artists know that “the increase of sample based music, and the acceptance of that music by a certain percentage of people shows that the only people that bother to sue and destroy these works operate on outdated ideological and perhaps purely financial principles” (Hollis). It is nigh impossible at this point for the record industry to keep up with technology, so it will soon cease to exist as we know it; then more people will be able to create what and how they want to create, distribute it how and where they want to distribute it, and take the kind of pride in their art that doesn’t come with incorporeal property rights marked with a ©.
Works Cited
"100 Greatest Albums 1985-2005." Spin Magazine July 2005.
Benjamin, Brad S. Paul's Boutique Samples and Reference List. 15 Mar 2004. Retrieved 30 Jan
2006 <http://www.moire.com/beastieboys/samples>
Dæmon. "Who The Hell Is Clint Mansell?." Sick Among The Pure. 2004. Retrieved 31 Jan 2006
Dean, Katie. "Remixing to Protest Sample Ruling." Wired 22 Sep 2004. Retrieved 26 Jan 2006
<http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,65037,00.html>
dub.ca. "Beginners Guide To Dub." . Retrieved 29 Jan 2006
<http://www.dub.ca/reading/dubguide.html>
Farnsworth, Philo T., Steev Hise, and Carrie McLaren. "Illegal Art Compilation CD Liner
Notes." Stay Free! . Retrieved 15 Jan 2006 <http://illegal-art.org/audio/liner.html>
Gates Jr., Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay, ed. The Norton Anthology of African American
Literature. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
Grey Tuesday. 26 Feb 2004. Retrieved 31 Jan 2006 <http://www.greytuesday.org/>
Heard, Chris. "Silver jubilee for first rap hit." BBC News 14 Oct 2004. Retrieved 29 Jan 2006
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3727320.stm>
Hollis, Matt. Personal Interview. January 31, 2006.
Kurutz, Steve. "Biography." Kool DJ Herc. 2006. allmusic. Retrieved 29 Jan 2006
<http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:q9hxlfjejcqw~T1>
Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004.
Lessig, Lawrence. "Keynote Address." Open Source Convention. Sheraton San Diego Hotel and
Marina, San Diego, CA. 24 Jul 2002.
M-1. About M-1. 18 Jan 2006 <http://www.m-1.us/about.html>
> mcsleazy <. "GYBO Rules and Guidelines." Online posting. 5 Mar 2005. Get Your Bootleg
On. Retrieved 31 Jan 2006. <http://www.gybo-v3.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=1448>
"Music and Copyright." University Publishing Copyright. Washington State University.
Retrieved 29 Jan. 2006 <http://publishing.wsu.edu/copyright/music_copyright/>
No. 01-00412. 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 7 Sep 2004.
Negativland. "Changing Copyright." . Retrieved 19 Dec 2005
<http://negativland.com/changing_copyright.html>
Oswald, John. "Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative." 1985.
Retrieved 31 Jan 2006 <http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xplunder.html>
"Rap Sample FAQ." Search results for “public enemy”. The Breaks. Retrieved 30 Jan 2006
<http://www.the-breaks.com/search.php?term=public+enemy&type=6>
Rashbaum, Alyssa. "New Releases: Jay-Z, Division Of Laura Lee, Seven Mary Three, Killswitch
Engage, Lil' Flip & More." MTV News 10 May 2004. Retrieved 31 Jan 2006
<http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1486921/05102004/jay_z.jhtml>
Rocky. "RE: Song Remakes & Song Sampling." Online posting. 3 Jan 2006. Erin & Ratman's
Annoy Rock and Rollatorium. Retrieved 29 Jan 2006.
<http://www.annoyatorium.com/tm.aspx?m=194645&mpage=1&key=趼>
Tape-beatles. "Concept album? Conceptual art? High concept? What?" Public Works
Productions. Public Works Productions. Retrieved 29 Jan 2006
<http://pwp.detritus.net/faq/conceptual.html>
" Thilman, Jude."Art and Music Sampling: The Death of Creativity." Telecommunications Radio
Project. KPFA Radio, Hollywood, CA. 1 Dec 1993. Transcript. Retrieved 31 Jan 2006
<http://www.eff.org/IP/Audio/?f=art_and_music_sampling.paper.html>
Why Sampling Rights Matter." Three Notes and Runnin'. Downhill Battle. Retrieved 27 Jan
2006 <http://www.downhillbattle.org/3notes/sampling_rights.php>