126 Comments

Kyran

Robot rock was a complete rip off as well.

What you do have to give them is that they actually improved most of the tracks on that link. And that they actually dug up the great hook. Crate digging is an artform in itself.

That’s why I like daft punks sampling a lot more than Kanye’s. I mean, everyone can make a hit if they just have to slow down an track which has already proven to be a hit. It’s like the millions of versions of sweet dreams out there. It’s a great track, and be a hit no matter what you do with it.

DJ Shadow once explained it very nice:
When I sample a track, I try to take the good bits and leave the bad ones. Cause if I make a track out of all the good bits of all the tracks out there, it’s got to be a good track
(it’s not really a quote, but that’s what he meant)
That’s not the same as taking a mega hit and rebrand it.

August 31, 2007 @ 8:20 am

metrosonus

This site will not degrade to “first-post”-ing — Jaymis

First and foremost, I think it’s an issue of misrepresentation. If they were billed as “Dj/ReMix Artists Daft Punk” in interviews and other places of public scrunity, I think that there would be less of a backlash.

I think the backlash comes from a sense of ethics. Electronic Music has always been more or less a DIY genre and I think that’s lead to a sense of collective pride for the listener that they were actually connecting with the artist in a way that you can’t from a studio produced, consumer product sort of way.

There, you expect this sort of thing. Here, the faith we have in our culture was taken advantage of; we feel fooled and betrayed.

Also I agree that it probably pangs the Djs and Musicians a bit more. Guys with a copy of Acid who blatantly stich whole segments of songs together and pass them off as their own work should be the laughing stock of the club scene. But they’re the ones laughing, all the way to the bank. That offends our sense of ethics as well.

They brought what we stand against in a space suited trojan horse, and we were all stabbed in the back whilst we danced unaware.

August 31, 2007 @ 8:25 am

loops

Kyran said it, it’s crate digging, which to me is a real form of art.
You might think it’s easy taking a great hook and building a succesful song around that, but to do that you first have to find these great originals.
I listened to a lot of drum & bass in the 90’s, and you know what were the best tracks for me? The ones with samples from old funk & soul tracks. Artists like Paradox still do it and with great success.

August 31, 2007 @ 8:49 am

aj

This is a non-issue. And old news, actually, that Sample Wednesday link is from months ago, isn’t it? It made the rounds of the blogosphere and then vanished into the ‘ah, interesting, but meh’ file.

I get a bit cranky when a bunch of Year Zero musical purists get on a legless high horse about sampling. Of course Daft Punk use samples. If you couldn’t hear that they were samples originally, you need to get out more.

Secondly, part of what gets me upset is that this anti-sampling attitude is essentially rockist. It’s like those “No Synthesizers!” stickers that dinosaur bands would put on their albums in the 70s.

It’s a misplaced quest for authority, couched as a search for authenticity. Apparently, as long as Daft Punk were writing every note themselves and ’sampling’ their own performances in the studio to make loops, that was OK, but once their hooks are revealed to be sampled off old, obscure tracks, that somehow invalidates the fact that Discovery is a kick-ass album that’s still head and shoulders above anything currently on the market, years after its release?

I say these kinds of fans want ‘authority’ in the guise of authenticity — they don’t want to be caught out listening to something uncool, they want to be assured by the Powers that Be that it is indeed True and Righteous.

When in fact most pop is all tinsel and artifice and all our idols are not as working-class as they make themselves out to be (John Mellor, the diplomat’s son, anyone?). To expect ‘authenticity’ from a couple of guys in robot masks who may not even be the people we think they are underneath!! is a bit of a stretch.

August 31, 2007 @ 8:50 am

aj

And furthermore — they’d be plagiarists if they ripped off the complete song structure, lyrics, and melody, but they didn’t.

Their albums show an advanced, almost classical, sense of composition, texture, counterpoint and harmony. Whether the songs are structured around samples or not is irrelevant; the fact that they created a new work that transcends its components is highly relevant.

That to me is the definition of “composition,” and that should put to bed any questions about who wrote what!

August 31, 2007 @ 9:01 am

thesnoc

I could not say it better than aj myself. Old news. Electronic music artists always sample old stuff. The good ones bring new life to an old hook. There is nothing wrong with that. As a dj I have the original songs DP sampled their biggest hits from to throw in the mix for fun.

August 31, 2007 @ 9:02 am

Chris B

My take on this is one more mainstream beat-up - seriously, it’s like Dylan criticising all music that’s recorded electronically, or the mainstream news jupming all over an art film because it has nudity!

Bottom line is this - the guys in Daft Punk were (and possibly still are) DJs who produce. At the end of the day, DJ production is about churning out new tracks that work on a dancefloor. Creativity is important, but only in as much as the crowd isn’t going to repond to something they’ve heard a thousand times before. If you can take the opening 16 from an obscure 70s track and turn it into a dancefloor stormer then bang, you’ve succeeded!

Now this culture has infiltrated the mainstream music industry, which has it’s own traditional set of memes concerning “plagiarism” (however hypocritical they may be - have you listened to Jet, Killers, Oasis, etc. etc. ad nauseum).

Basically it comes down to a question of purpose - if Daft Punk were out there claiming to be great original thinkers, then sure, ridicule that. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard them make that claim (for all that unimaginative music writers might assume it). The music is about enterntainment, and that is something that Daft Punk deliver in spades.

As a secondary, and purely financial point, the fact that most (if not all) of these samples would have been cleared has probably meant a considerable fiancial windfall for the original artists (few of whom I imagine are making a great deal of money from the music otherwise).

August 31, 2007 @ 9:16 am

Jin

Cheating? Maybe. A simple test:

1. Find an obscure sample.

2. Use it in a track of your own.

Is the result even a tiny bit as insanely kickass as even the most average Daft Punk track?

If it is, then good for you, you’re at least as good as DP and your new found lack of respect for them as artists is entirely justified.

If not, well keep at it, maybe one day you’ll cheat as well as them.

In the mean time I’ll be rocking out to their sampling genius as they are freaking FINALLY touring Australia. Woot!

August 31, 2007 @ 9:18 am

Bobby Fever

dudes… sure, sampling is an art form… I totally buy that… and I agree that the old argument around it is a bit boring. BUT! have you checked out the samples that DP uses? it reminds me of P Diddly. they just grab the hook and loop it. whoa. talent. listen to robot rock and then listen to Release the Beast by Breakwater. Jeeeeebus. anyway, props for the digging skills i guess?… and i probably wouldn’t have found the original tracks on my own (and they rule!) so I guess that’s a net positive? But it does feel like a bit of a Malcolm McLaren-esque ruse. Robot Rock indeed. Oh, but look at the pretty lights!

August 31, 2007 @ 9:19 am

Looza

Well, I knew the Edwin Birdsong Track even before Daft Punk sampled it and it’s a classic case of “Intro-Sampling” that I hate. I know crate-digging is an art (and something I spend quite alot of time on myself), however in my book taking a 4bar-loop and adding some drums is not enough. You need to work the samples, really get creative or else it’s just an “edit” (not even a remix), but not a new track.

And by the way, isn’t the beat from that Kanye-Song from Swizz Beats ? Thought I read that somewhere …

And Kyran : DJ Shadow is not the best producer himself. Check some of the (inofficial) “sampled by DJ Shadow”-Collections (I know of two) and you might be surprised. Sometimes not very far off Daft Punk and P. Diddy. “Midnight in a perfect world” for example is a 80%-ripoff of some Gorgio Moroder Track.

HipHop meanwhile stinks, as does DiscoHouse. Too much lazy cannibalism of old hits.

August 31, 2007 @ 9:28 am

Looza

Differently put : Some people dig old tracks and make some “VA”-Collections, others edit the tracks, add some drums and make it an album under their own name.

August 31, 2007 @ 9:31 am

supasharpshooter

Actually Kanye West’s “Stronger” uses only the vocal sample from DP’s “Harder Better Faster Stronger.” The vocals are made entirely by DP, so there is no “Cola Bottle Baby” in “Stronger”.

August 31, 2007 @ 9:32 am

Tyler

Kanye West sucks, lol.

Daft Punk sucks, lol.

Thats about all that needs to be said about this issue. If you can tastefully or artfully pull off sampling, be it obvious or not, by all means proceed. Even if its a sample of a sample.

But the two artists in question are by no means good musicians. Their entire ‘career’ is built on hype, not musicianship.

August 31, 2007 @ 9:39 am

paulo

I don’t think it was so bad on homework, but from discovery on was when they made it the biggest and every other song has been a freaking sampled loop.

And I recall an interview precisely at that time, in which they were going on about how discovery was more focused around playing music and their relationship with the instruments. That’s low, guys.

I agree 110% with the author on this one, and I know people will go really long ways to rationalize a defense for their idols, but you have to admit that you just can’t say anything about these people’s skills because that line is just too blurred.

I don’t think they sound so hot, anyway.

August 31, 2007 @ 9:41 am

G Man

Composing your own music (working at the note level) is different than sampling (working at the waveform level). Period. There’s a different process involved and the end result is not subject to the same criticism.

Anyway, there’s a saying that I think applies well here: “You’ve seen the movie, now read the book…” Whereby we acknowledge that the song is derivative, but equally important (and enjoyable).

August 31, 2007 @ 9:43 am

Gogmagog

For me, it’s a question of which direction the musician comes at it from. Consider the DJ who has a particular beat in mind, the first inkling of a hook, a general idea of the song he wants to make. He then goes combing through his vinyl collection for something that fits that idea. It’s HIS idea, he’s just piecing the pieces together.

Now consider the DJ who has no clue how to make a good song. He flips through his records, hears a hook that he likes, then decides to make that the basis of his “new” song. Maybe he adds a four-to-the-floor beat to it from his supa-fly collection of drum loops in Fruity Loops, maybe a “fresh” female vocalist rapping in one part, etc, etc. It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes. That’s Daft Punk, and a hell of allot of other DJs out there. F**king lame.

August 31, 2007 @ 9:55 am

Looza

supasharpshooter : no, the sample in the kanye song is the a piece from “faster harder” which uses the 8bars from the intro from “cola bottle shake baby”, so there is enough “cola bottle” in “stronger.”
Btw, there are loads of great samples later in the song, but DP didn’t even bother. They could have done a great cutup, but …

Tyler : I thought for a long time that kanye atleast wrote great lyrics but recently learned that his lyrics are often co-written by other people (rhymefest for example), and the “jesus walks”-beat is really kick-ass, but I am not sure he did it himself.

August 31, 2007 @ 9:58 am

Michael Una

A little while back, Tom over at Music thing compiled an audiovisual comparison of several Daft Punk tracks and the original tracks they sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJPdVVOmbz4

August 31, 2007 @ 10:04 am

Peter Kirn

Well, this definitely isn’t in the news category; that wasn’t the intention. But I think it is something that’s on people’s minds, on a personal level… if the very groove that makes you love a song is just recycled, then yeah, there’s some excitement missing. So I was interested in Liz’s response a) because it was personal, her own feelings about her connection to the music and b) because we’re now getting very meta with Kanye sampling a song that samples a song with lyrics about him sampling the sampling samplers samples. Very reflexive.

We may do a series of these Random Rants, just to let out those conversations we’d likely have at a pub.

So, carry on… comments are as always intelligent and thought-provoking! (Hmm… now if I just had a nice, cold beer…)

August 31, 2007 @ 10:07 am

Looza

BTW: All I can say is that years ago HipHop and Discohouse brought me to Funk and Disco. The originals they sample from are mostly 1000% better, except for those rare cases when someone takes the only good 4 bars out of a song that’s otherwise horrible.

August 31, 2007 @ 10:09 am

supasharpshooter

Ok gotta re-check the song then, alltho i hate the song since its about KANYE WEST doing the dirty work. Ppl should check what else West has been doing, really nasty ripping. DP isnt the bad guy here.

Daft Punk did a excellent samplespotting on Discovery-album. Even “Music Sound Better With You” uses aprx 2 seconds from Chaka Chan’s “Fate” and stretches it to a full 6 mins anthem.

Without sampling we would not have hiphop, house and half of the electronic music. Why sampling suddenly is “BAD” and “NON-CREATIVE”? Have you all lived in a chimney for these 20 years? You really should do some catchup on http://www.the-breaks.com/ like for an example.

August 31, 2007 @ 10:11 am

Morgan Sutherland

Since when does anybody care about how much “skillz” the “author” has? If the music is good, listen to it.

August 31, 2007 @ 10:15 am

Dave Dri

I simply dont like Daft Punk. Never got into their stuff and always found a lot of things about them cheesy and unappealing. This is coming from someone who has been a massive (massive) fan of Chemical Brothers since 1995. Add to that Underworld and im one of the slowly aging demographies that know what it is to love the “Stadium Electronica” band concept in a way that seems to be dying off amongst disposable/posable electro heroes.

Problem is… when you have Chemical Brothers making these amazing albums out of an insane amount of equipment, enormous amounts of clever samples and a brilliant engineering and mastering quality, you might find it harder to accept the Daft Punk “license it en mass” style. Another problem… when you have Underworld continuing to play so openly and honestly with a rare transparency to what they are doing on stage and in the studio (plus no shame to let the odd unmute mistake by Rick happen in their set) then its harder to accept the amount of bulls**t Daft Punk lie about their methods in the studio and the sheer facade of their live show. Look at the shiny lights! Smoke and mirrors! Wee!

I accept DP have genius, but its wasted IMHO. I dont mind if people worship them, but i stand by my own rights to despise the careers they have built on bulls**t and obscurity. I could go on for hours about the crap they spout in music production magazines (often contradicting the last interview) but it rewards me little to be so negative.

August 31, 2007 @ 10:15 am

paulo

I kind of like Kanye, though not so much for production merits. He raises relevant issues in his rapping and this bit about sampling is an example of that.

August 31, 2007 @ 10:18 am

Nasir

I think these comments sum it up:
“As you hear these tracks you’ll either decide Daft Punk isn’t as genius as you thought they were or that they’re twice as amazing.” - from the Palms Out Sounds post

“Still, I could sample these tracks all day long, and it wouldn’t sound like 5% of Daft Punk” - from Music Thing’s post (http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2007/02/daft-punks-samples-visual-aid.html)

Surely you were living in denial if you thought every note off of their albums was completely original. You have to agree that they’ve done *much* more than just “rip off” these grooves. Listening to these tracks and considering where they ended up, the transformation took some talent.

I think it’s pretentious to deny artistic credit to someone just because the work came from somewhere else. What if they had hired session musicians and reperformed these grooves? If they can spend less time re-creating stuff and more time infusing it with their own style, I’m all for the latter.

Of course, credit should be given where it’s due …

August 31, 2007 @ 10:22 am

Lost

Why is coming up with a hook all your own so important? Personally i find that if if you do find a good hook, its probably been used before. So if you take one that you hear, just a couple of seconds of a song, and use if for your own purposes so what? The artistry comes out in their immpecable and unique sound and their utterly devine sense of timeing. I’ve never heard a daft punk song that repeated a loop one time too many. Ive never heard a daft punk sound release too long, attack too short or sound anything less than perfect. And i mean its not like they don’t understand this. Just listen to Teachers. With that bassline how could anyone question that Dr. Dre was in the house? Whether he they or anyone we know made it. The point is nothing is original, you can’t escape your forbearers and in the end its all just sound anyway.

August 31, 2007 @ 10:41 am

Lucidmedia

I have to take issue with the idea that “crate digging is an artform in itself”. Imagine if we brought that idea to scientific research or to product development! I think many people today misinterpret cultural literacy and “doing your homework” as original work. It is not. It is merely the foundation upon which original work can begin.

New creative works, like scientific theories, have always built upon work from the past. We update them with new knowledge and place them in the context of current culture. In this way the work becomes new and transcends the old. Smart authors make us keenly aware of thier relationship to what has come before…

August 31, 2007 @ 10:50 am

Lost

Agreed Lucid Media. I feel like this need for orginality(i.e. not doing your homework cause you know, i make real music MY music) is almost what is undermining actual originality. If you refuse to think about other music when making it, or just blindly attempt to be original you will inevitably end up making something that is either 1) horrible or 2) a very basic rip off version of something you havnt heard. Usually a little bit of both. But if one samples you are directly interacting with your peers, with other music so originality is forced. No matter how much daft punk make like the flow of a song they sampled or the what may come afdter or before the 4 bar block they choose to sample they know they cant recreate it, cant sample it too and dont. They make it their own because it almost forces them too. Certainly their are people who don’t understand this. Ive heard recent electro mixes taking older house songs and jsut running them through a distortion effect. Thats not what i’m talking about. Thats what you guys should be getting up in arms about. 4 bars does not a song make.

August 31, 2007 @ 10:57 am

mad wax | vocode project

without sampling there’d be no drum n bass and no hip hop. sure cats laced these respective genres with old records - but in a way introduced a whole generation to music they might have otherwise never heard.

*shrug*

August 31, 2007 @ 11:01 am

mad wax | vocode project

to further elaborate, take a look at Gangstarr’s classic “Mass Appeal” - that riff was taken from some obscure record from Norway or some s–t like that… but without the drums and gurus flow, no one would have ever heard it otherwise.. I dunno man…

August 31, 2007 @ 11:03 am

Gogmagog

Many people here are making the argument that most people couldn’t, given the same samples, make songs as good as DP. That’s questionable, but for the cases where they’re right, it’s due to production, which is 80% science and 20% art (probably allot of different opinions on those numbers, but…). It’s noise-reduction, compression, cross-fades, etc. It’s dependent on how much money you can spend on your gear. Does that make them good musicians? No, just good producers.

And I’m not even mentioning the role the mastering plays (which they don’t do).

August 31, 2007 @ 11:11 am

loops

Why is coming up with a hook all your own so important? Personally i find that if if you do find a good hook, its probably been used before.

I did a track without any intended reference, and guess what. I comments from several people it sounded just like the Eagles’ Hotel California. Go figure, I had no clue.

August 31, 2007 @ 11:12 am

loops

Woops, meant to cite Lost in that first paragraph in my comment above.

August 31, 2007 @ 11:13 am

MRKisThatKid

My biggest sampling based UGH! moment was upon discovered the joys of Steve Reich and going through his back catalogue I came across Part 3 of Electric Counterpoint. It’s one of the ones The Orb sampled, the UGH! is because they didn’t actually add anything to it. In fact the original is so much better!

August 31, 2007 @ 11:22 am

Shimmy

Sampling was what electronic music was all about (think of all the tracks out there that sampled James Brown!). There’s a real charm about the music of that era, where rights weren’t really an issue and the tracks circulated freely. I’m thinking that we’re just having a crack at this issue from a more modern, uptight perspective. It’s like looking back at the movie Dumbo, realizing that the little bugger got shit-faced in a kids film and getting pissed about it.

Indie 103.1’s “Jonsey’s Jukebox” had a little thing about how sampling, remixes, and mash-ups are getting discouraged because of the issue on rights. I feel it. I used to be a DJ from late middle school and since become scared to death of getting sued for posting mixes/remixes. On the other hand, the modern me is scared of people like Timbaland, who might rip me off and not give me any credit (http://idolator.com/tunes/clips/timbaland-accused-of-timbalifting-another-musicians-track-229598.php).

I’ll try to say this without sounding like a hippie. I think as long as the musicians keep the sticks out of their asses and remembered to say “please” and “thanks”, we could see some really killer tracks pop up out’ve the woodwork.

Btw, DP rocks. I squeezed out a little mix of them a while a go: http://www.musicv2.com/artist/bedroom_dj

August 31, 2007 @ 11:27 am

Todd Fletcher

There’s a difference between painting and collage - we all understand this.

It’s cool to have both, but if all anyone ever does is sample other music, everything gets stale. Like the water on a deep space mission after it’s been peed in 3000 times, do you really think it still tastes good? Something fresh needs to enter the system.

As a thought experiment, imagine what this music would be like if those funk and disco musicians in the 70s has never recorded. And by extension, what are we leaving to sample for the electronic music of 20 years from now? Plundering the past leaves nothing for the future.

August 31, 2007 @ 11:34 am

Lucidmedia

I agree with Todd above… but what I really think we are talking about here is not the difference between painting and collage, but collage and pastiche….

August 31, 2007 @ 11:42 am

Liz McLean Knight

Sweet! I am so happy to see this conversation bring up a lot of good points, presented intelligently.

Electronic Music has always been more or less a DIY genre and I think that’s lead to a sense of collective pride for the listener that they were actually connecting with the artist in a way that you can’t from a studio produced, consumer product sort of way….it probably pangs the Djs and Musicians a bit more. Guys with a copy of Acid who blatantly stich whole segments of songs together and pass them off as their own work should be the laughing stock of the club scene. But they’re the ones laughing, all the way to the bank. That offends our sense of ethics as well.

I agree with your sentiment, metrosonus, and I think it’s especially true among the sort of people who read CDM.

Now consider the DJ who has no clue how to make a good song. He flips through his records, hears a hook that he likes, then decides to make that the basis of his “new” song.

Right, I think DP falls into this category, and yes, I can see the point Chris B is making about them being entertainers and DJs moreso than original producers, but for me, I feel let down learning that the killer synth-guitar riff from “Robot Rock” was lifted straight from Release the Beast,” no reinterpretation or new perspective added.

sure cats laced these respective genres with old records - but in a way introduced a whole generation to music they might have otherwise never heard.

I don’t think this is necessarily the case that kids today will spend hours on the internet searching for the source samples behind their favorite tracks, and then suddenly become fans of the original music. My boyfriend teaches graphic design at a college where the ages are between 18 and 23 so he’s got a first hand look at how they operate and respond to their culture. In regards to “Stronger,” most of the hip hop fans (who haven’t heard of Daft Punk) think Kanye is a brilliant producer for bringing a new electro-y sound to hip hop, and had no desire to engage in any sort of research to change their opinion about K-Dub.

Secondly, he’s constantly faced with this “generation y” mentality that “plagarism saves time and means I’m superior because I can copy straight from the internet.” It may be a stretch, but it would appear that this younger generation has no problem with appropriating other’s works as your own (and sharing files, etc). This is probably an issue on its own, as it would affect how future generations approach both music creation and appreciation.

In an age where very exciting things are happening in music creation, from innovative, algorithmic generative sounds to new types of hardware and interfaces (like the Tenori-On), it ’s exciting to think about the what music in the future is going to sound like. As anyone who’s working at the bleeding edges of this field can tell you, there’s a certain exhilaration you experience when you discover a completely new sound or a way of creating music–that no one before you has done something just like this ever before (although it’s definitely made possible by what’s come before it). Sampling, in a way, bypasses this process.

I think Lucidmedia’s point about comparing the approach of crate digging to the scientific method is a great one:

I think many people today misinterpret cultural literacy and “doing your homework” as original work. It is not. It is merely the foundation upon which original work can begin…New creative works, like scientific theories, have always built upon work from the past. We update them with new knowledge and place them in the context of current culture. In this way the work becomes new and transcends the old. …

So I’m still in favor of creating original work over sampling riffs and calling them your own. And if you can do it on Tenori-On with custom MAX patches, even better! :-)

August 31, 2007 @ 11:58 am

Lost

oh as a side note, im by no means suggesting the only way we should make music is by sampling. I’m just saying it forces(and inherently is) recontextualization, which is all that originality really is or ever will be. I mean just look at the growing convergence of dance music and rock. Go back to the late 70’s/early 80’s and who’d of ever friggen’ thought that would EVER happen(death to disco?). Well i’m sure a bunch of people wished it, but still it certainly must of seemed impossible.

August 31, 2007 @ 12:04 pm

inasilentway

I think this issue here is not the sampling Daft Punk uses, but the extreme compression. I think their music is great, even if it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, but their “style” of using so much compression that the entire mix sounds like it’s being sucked into a vacuum on every beat gives me an immense headache, especially if I try to listen on phones.

August 31, 2007 @ 12:04 pm

Liz McLean Knight

(That was a long post… I know Peter said I was done, so please feel free to keep ranting!)

August 31, 2007 @ 12:05 pm

Machines

I wasn’t going to weigh in too heavy on this, but seems to me like the “sample anger” is misdirected here. Whether you like it or not, you have to admit that at least it is being done the professional way by giving credit where credit is due.

The real issue I have with sampling is when it is done yet the artists are too high and mighty to go about the proper way of doing business, i.e. Timbaland and his multi-ripoff of the Tempest tune (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV2fTEeP6GM)

For me personally, sampling isn’t my bag because I know I’m not very good at it. I do get inspired by existing material, as most musicians do, but while I may find it a bit disappointing that Daft Punk didn’t pen all those great hooks themselves, I’m also 100% honest with myself in saying that there is absolutely no way I could do what they do as well as they do it.

August 31, 2007 @ 12:17 pm

Lost

Lets get back to basics. Why is making music that contains nothing previously recorded important? Should manufactured sample disc be put in this catagory?(i personally feel this is worse than using a sample from another song) What is gained(or lost) by only recording your own notes? And lets extend this to sound. Presets? Are they okay? Or is that plagarism too? What level of originality is enough to satisfy the purists? What about all our manufactured gear that basicly guides us through our music making process, forcing us to stay within its confines? Should MAX/MSP be the only thing used to make music? Or is using all their prebuilt patches plagarism too? I know it may seem a little pedantic but where does one draw the line?

August 31, 2007 @ 12:21 pm

dan s.

I can’t believe what I’m reading. Haven’t we had this discussion before, in like the seventies? You all sound like prog rock dudes listening to punk the first time “man they can’t even play their instruments” or a 1950s geriatric hearing rock ‘n’ roll for the first time.
Anyway I’m with aj, although I think it’s sad that to this day and age you have to pull the old “classical” skills card to justify new kinds of musicianship.

August 31, 2007 @ 12:34 pm

Dave Dri

I dont think any sane person in the music industry can attack sampling, its been around for decades now and has spawned so many genres. The thing here is the extent DP have not just sampled, but obtained (whether by licensing or one of the many “replay” services) entire tracks. You could compare this to the seminal Beastie Boys album produced (and nearly completely musical written) by the Dust Brothers (from the USA, also produced Beck and wrote soundtrack for Fight Club, not to be mistaken for the first name the Chemical Brothers took). Paul Boutique was a massive milestone of an album for its sampling and often large sections of. Beastie Boys did this a lot, just listen to “root down”. Thing is, this is par for the course of hiphop and they never pretended to write this music. Daft Punk however… if you cant see that distinction then theres no point arguing with you. Go buy a fluro shirt and dance with the kids.

As for Lost’s comment “I’ve never heard a daft punk song that repeated a loop one time too many”. FFS are you kidding? SERIOUSLY?

Rock, robot rock. Rock, robot rock… that whole album was one big boring loop. If you dig this then thats fine, but you cant seriously spout nonsense like that. The absolute barrage of tepid reviews that album got were repeat missile attacks on the banality of its vision. Whatever your feelings, the fact of the matter is they are copping a massive amount of bad vibes for the way they have gone about representing their music and performances. That alone pulls the Legends Of All Time trophy out of their hands. All they can do to cheer up now is roll around on their mountain of money.

August 31, 2007 @ 12:36 pm

Señor Pantalones

For the record, I don’t use compositional (as opposed to single hit or patched non-loop instrumental) samples.

However, this rant and frequently-voiced argument fails, and will always fail, when placed in the context of thematic evolution and music history. This argument can apply to nearly any kind of art.

In short, there is nothing new, only incremental developments on existing themes — even picasso’s revolutionary work spawned from a deliberately divergent approach to contemporary methods. There is no point in wasting any brain cycles on those who are successful in doing so. Artists recontextualize and rethink the themes and methods in their lives. Daft Punk certainly aren’t geniuses, but their stuff is catchy and successful for a good reason. They take catchy hooks and recontextualize them with elements appealing to contemporary club audiences (ranging from better percussion to themes of futurism).

As much as I love being a hater…I really do…I just think that deep down this attitude stems from jealousy and resentment that the efforts many of us put into what we think is “original” music, composed with our own allegedly-”original” ideas, isn’t as successful.

But thanks for the rant…good reading!

August 31, 2007 @ 12:41 pm

_object.session

i was surprised to hear some of those sampled songs. some of the samples ended up being the best part of daft punk songs. but i don’t particularly like any of the original songs, so i wonder if the samples are only so good in context.

personally, i’ve found the process of going from 8 bars of music to an entire songs to be a lot more challenging than coming up with a few catchy measures. so, i’m not that disappointed.

actually, after reading this post, i kind of want to listen daft punk right now. :-)

August 31, 2007 @ 12:48 pm

Lost

*takes a step back*
Yeah okay, i probably should of phrased that way more intelligently. What i really meant was that they give you what you want just when you need it. Human after all certainly has many times where they seemed to have forgotten how to do this, seemingly to make some robotic point or some shit. I mean listen to emotion. But around the world? Rolling and scratching? Pheonix? they seem to have an uncanny knack at introducing something new at the perfect time. Some people certainly don’t see the same thing sounding diffenret as something new exciting like i do but thats obviously very objective. Honestly i could listen to that riff from robot rock all day, but yes, if you call daft punk Legendary musicians you are missing the point. The point is to run around dancing in fluro shirts.

August 31, 2007 @ 12:49 pm

Dave Dri

Thread needs more rants. Then we’ll all take various letters of the alphabet and go see Daft Punk anyway. My Chemical Brothers tickers arrived today, and my Daft Punk ones will arrive next week. Im still a hater though. PLUR.

August 31, 2007 @ 1:03 pm

karhu

pam pam!

I think (the point has been made above somewhere), that
the authenticity of pure-sample based music really depends on the craftmansship of how you incorporate/work with samples. of course you can mix two 16 bars samples
together and call it a new song, that would have worked in the 80s/90s but today you can do that in 5 minutes with the right applications. music has always been about progression - musically (think stockhausen, hah (i know that is debatable)) as well as highly technically. therefore the authenticity of an artist, especially nowadays is highly dependant on his - as i said- craftmansship regarding the technical abilities to create/compose music. the development of the piano, for example, opened up for a whole new style of intonation, composition and playability of an instrument. and in the end it is nothing else than a technical innovation
which differs from previous instruments in these respects. so you can also debate over the “authenticity” of a piano-compostion since the piano introduced a sort of abstraction of how you create a song compared to how you did it with other instruments that have been widely used before that. creating a song/compostion entirely of samples is -technically- nothing else than such an abstraction. i totally disagree that you are working on waveform level with samples rather than some sort of “note-level”, because you are (usually) combining samples tonally and rhythmically. which is exactly what you do on a different abstraction when you compose something for a piano. however, a composition won’t have a musicial quality if you just mix some samples together. obviously “putting together”
chords like F, Em, A7, Dm on your guitar won’t be quite
authentic either, since a zillion bands and the beatles used that chord progression as well.
and i seriously think that digging is an art form, because essentially you are looking for “chords” in your composition that fit in. autechre, venetian snares, etc have always been heavily into sampling and I think they created new, valuable compositions while relying completely on material of others. and well, it’s because of their craftmansship.
i use a lot of samples and i don’t make any difference between what i sampled from old records and what i played myself or what i have programmed. in the end those building-blocks are equal in the compostion - regardless of their origin.

for those who are interested, my current ep which took almost 3 years to complete: http://karhumusic.sesser.at/karhu-seven_sixteen_promo_mp3.zip

2 cents
//karhu

August 31, 2007 @ 1:05 pm

Lost

Daft Punk’s live show might change you’re mind man. That’s where they really shine. And I tihnk that’s what keeps them happy. Being able to make so many other people happy. Sure people say its all smoke and mirrors but damn. Still would be the best show i’ve seen since radiohead, even if they played completely in the dark. And for the record i’d probably be a hater too at this point if i didnt resolve to stop believing in guilty pleasures this year. =P

August 31, 2007 @ 1:09 pm

Jim

Lost, I sense that you’re a bit fed-up. And I agree with what you’re implying.

Electronic music, has, from it’s very beginnings been about re-appropriating the old into new contexts. Some of the first electronic music, music concrete, consisted solely of manipulating samples. Furthermore, many of the instruments that created the first dance electronic music were not designed for that purpose in the first place, like the tb-303.

Electronic music has always straddled the thin line between appreciation and appropriation. Bottom line, there really are few tools or methods, as Lost points out, that are completely original, or, as he says, “enough for the purists.”

I did lose some respect for dp when I found out most of their music was samples, but it’s still good music. I kind of feel the same way about dp as I do about modern art that is just paint spattered on a canvass or just a simple line. If it was all so simple, why didn’t someone else do it first?

As a musician, it’s also kind of hard to separate from the jealousy factor and objectively talk about this.

August 31, 2007 @ 1:12 pm

Dave Dri

Less spam, more hugging and strobes.

August 31, 2007 @ 1:17 pm

Lucidmedia

“I think (the point has been made above somewhere), that
the authenticity of pure-sample based music really depends on the craftmansship of how you incorporate/work with samples.”

I agree to a point, but would take things one step past “craftmanship” towards “context.” What is the function of the sample? How, as a recognizable figure placed in a new context, does it communicate the collage artists intentions?

Keep in mind, however, that I am personally interested in reflexive works and the creation of “meaning” as opposed to pure form or composition (in music and in other forms of creative work). I don’t believe that postmodernism gives anyone a free ride!

August 31, 2007 @ 2:12 pm

plurgid

Lucidmedia: “Imagine if we brought that idea to scientific research or to product development!”

clearly, you have never worked in software development. ;-)

August 31, 2007 @ 2:40 pm

Adrian Anders

Homework = Legendary
Discovery = Passable
Human After All = Horrible w/ one or two bright spots

Sad really considering how great they once were. But that’ happens to all legends, they get out of touch.

If you want to hear where sampling should be and where it’s going cop an El-P, Prefuse-73 or Aesop Rock CD.

ATA

August 31, 2007 @ 2:58 pm

blueshifter

to anyone saying ‘daft punk rip off and provide no musical creativity of their own’, go ahead, do your own freak of ‘cola bottle baby’, and let’s stack it up to ‘harder better faster stronger’. I predict… you will FAIL.

me, i just got tickets to daft punk in las vegas in October.
HHHHUUUUMMMMAAAAAANNNNN
RRRRROOOBBBBAOOOOOTTTTT

August 31, 2007 @ 4:16 pm

Peter Kirn

Well, I’m still glad we brought this up — we’re getting lots of responses I didn’t expect. I’ve had days where I think my inner dialog has been on both sides of this debate. I’ve never lost respect for the amazing things that happened with sampling in hip-hop, but that came out of a specific context, and it had a really particular craft and meaning to it. As far as electronica’s ongoing use of sampling, some days I’m all about it. Other days, I just kind of long for a sense of listening to what’s coming out of a musician’s head and fingers directly.

Anyway, I don’t think you need a definitive answer to this question. I think you have to answer it for yourself, and how you feel about it personally. If sampling is getting you closer to your musical ideas and giving you a deeper feeling of what you’re sampling, go for it. If you need to get that lick into your fingers and pick it up that way, then do that.

August 31, 2007 @ 4:42 pm

bored

the thing that pissed me off about robot rock is there was no ****ing B-side to the single!

what a waste of vinyl

to adrian man el p and aesop fell off atleast a few years ago
not saying they didnt put there time in and get the props they deserve but they pretty much suck

August 31, 2007 @ 4:50 pm

bored

*pretty much suck now

August 31, 2007 @ 4:50 pm

thesimplicity

That Kanye West track is tight. Supposedly the album version will feature a completely different percussion part arranged by Timbaland. The album should be pretty nice. You people need to, like… have more fun with music. Go out and dance or something.

I’m going to run some Satie samples through a vocoder and build hiphop tracks out of them just to piss everyone off.

August 31, 2007 @ 5:47 pm

bored

^ wow you’re such a rebel

August 31, 2007 @ 6:28 pm

karhu

“I agree to a point, but would take things one step past “craftmanship” towards “context.” What is the function of the sample? How, as a recognizable figure placed in a new context, does it communicate the collage artists intentions?

Keep in mind, however, that I am personally interested in reflexive works and the creation of “meaning” as opposed to pure form or composition (in music and in other forms of creative work). I don’t believe that postmodernism gives anyone a free ride!”

i totally agree, but putting context via musicial references or lyrics in such a way that the music is
still coherent and therefore is meaningful/substantial musically is still craftmanship. personally i think that’s the supreme discipline of creating music, such music has the mostcultural relevance and should bust your mind/hear and ears equally. the fancy experimental
artsy fartsy fashion grindcore kind of music usually just manages the latter. next to the craftmanship and more of philosophical value: what’s the use of giving up your speech in current music?

##hyperbole start
i am more curious why substantial lyrics and such completely disappeared from “mainstream media” and why there is no high demand by the listening audience for substantial and/or authentic music. such lyrics don’t show any discussion of modern topics nor any attempt of substantial rebellion besides “i am a teenage bitch and won’t give a fuck about you”. and to be serious: i am in my mid-20s now and didn’t ever feel very much rebellious or pissed by my circumstances, environment or whatever besides when n’sync split up (hah). if this applies to my “generation” and the one following i don’t even see the base for the obvious discussion of (maybe simple) substantial topics, leave alone anything more sophisticated. with this precondition there is no
demand for “context” and - to get back to the topic - for authenticity.
##hyperbole end

0.2€
//karhu

August 31, 2007 @ 7:23 pm

Adrian Anders

@Bored

Bullshit dude. Their material continues to be by far some of the most dense and intricate of anything being produced in hip-hop today. Combining ironic disdain for pop culture while at the same time reveling in the couture of it, with higher minded forms of abstract experimentalism. The result is both enjoyable at a visceral and intellectual level.

I took a listen to your stuff man. Before you go slighting someone else’s taste in music you better be damn sure your shit is a whole hell of a lot better. You would be lucky to ever reach half of their level of skill.

Peace.

August 31, 2007 @ 8:31 pm

DJ McManus

Quote aj “misplaced quest for authority”

That’s a genius comment.

August 31, 2007 @ 9:31 pm

bored

I took a listen to your stuff man. Before you go slighting someone else’s taste in music you better be damn sure your shit is a whole hell of a lot better. You would be lucky to ever reach half of their level of skill.

________

right…if i took my music even a tad bit seriously you dont think id have a name of some sort?… i mean seriously i used ableton live a pos keyboard for midi info and some random free vsts so yea rip it apart i dont care i do it for fun

” with higher minded forms of abstract experimentalism. The result is both enjoyable at a visceral and intellectual level.”

hahahahahahahah! you sound so much like a hipster there it hurts
get the fuck out of here with that el p yea but 7 out of10 songs aesop dont make sense at all

that being said the daylight ep,music for earthworms and labor days are all pretty solid albums….the rest meh
hes got a pretty good track on we came from beyond volume 2 with slug and eyedea also….

aesop did a mix cd type thing for nike…you ‘intellectual’ types should be all up in arms about that…

im usually not one to say anything but damn i dont know people put el p and aesop on such a pedastal….how about the rhyme sayers camp sage francis’s label strange famous records shit ill catch up on living legends stuff before i buy a new aesop or el p albums..
just my personal prefrence in music… im not really as much of a smart ass as i just came off….mybad

im not

August 31, 2007 @ 10:22 pm

Adrian Anders

And you sound like a 12 year old brat who just got his first broadband connection. You get the hell out of here with your trollish attitude. If you have to criticize Kayne West or whomever, do it constructively and back up your argument. I may disagree with what the original article had to say about Daft Punk, but I can’t deny that the poster did a good job of backing up her ideas with solid points. Acting like a illiterate fool on a sophisticated blog like CDM pisses us “Hipster” (I call it well-educated) types off.

You have a shitty attitude and it really pisses me off. Best to back off, shut up, and perhaps take your music a bit more serious. Maybe then you wouldn’t look so god damned silly.

ATA

August 31, 2007 @ 11:26 pm

Joel Falconer

Ironic that Mr. West supposedly wrote those lyrics. He’s a poster boy for product placement (Seagram’s Gin, for instance, make appearances in his lyrics and are pretty transparently advertisements).

September 1, 2007 @ 12:18 am

aj

Just a quick response to Liz quoting metrosonus –

the idea that DIY digital music is somehow “purer” than sample-based music is where you start to hear the bones of electronic music calcify as it becomes a paranoid old man clawing for its memories of a golden 1979, clutching its Suzanne Ciani 8-track tapes to its sclerotic heart.

Maybe Daft Punk didn’t write the music in the samples. But they sure as hell arranged them in a way that I would consider neoclassical; even neo-baroque. You could take all the melody lines on Discovery and do an arrangement for orchestra and it’d still sound as good.

You also have to consider the fact that these are two guys from France - a country with a small, but absurdly influential electronic music scene compared to its size - and they come at it with a peculiarly Gallic angle.

The history of sampling goes back to Pierre Henry’s musique concrete experiments, so one can say that the French rather pioneered the artform, and French philosophers’ commentaries on the notion of authorship - Foucault comes to mind - provide the intellectual underpinnings for questioning the whole rockist “we wrote this song in a garage with our bare hands” idea. Authorship implies ownership, and thus is just another way for the Man to keep down the People, to put it in a severely bowdlerized fashion. Sampling deftly liberated music from Kopyrite Kontrol, often with a sense of fun about it, and nowadays we’re trying to strike a balance where sampled artists get royalties due.

then there’s the important fact that Thomas Bangalter’s father wrote the 70s disco hit ‘D.I.S.C.O’ for the duo Ottawan. They didn’t just spring up overnight; they’re part of a dance music legacy.

food for thought. thanks for reading, and thanks to those who appreciated my earlier comments.

September 1, 2007 @ 12:53 am

Liz McLean Knight

**
I just gotta say, when a thread drops Foucault, Baudelaire, Postmodernism, Pastiche, Collage, Contextuality vs. Craftmanship, Authority vs. Authenticity, and Authorship vs. Ownership you know you just stepped in some serious intellectualism. :-D

carry on!
**

September 1, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Keith Handy

Is everyone whose comment is some variation on “who cares about originality” or “there’s no such thing as originality anyway” a regular reader of this site, or did you flock here via a link from another blog? As far as I can tell, it’s called “CREATE digital music”, not “COPY digital music”…

(This is not aimed at anyone making well thought out pro-sampling arguments. And yes, I’m exhibiting a double standard for playing the “name of the blog” card and then lapping up the analog synth articles.)

September 1, 2007 @ 1:25 am

kyleklip

Besides all of the nice history lessons re Pierre Henry and his wonderful tape manipulation ideas:

Another relevant example of contextual sampling is the Justice remix of Simian’s ‘We Are Your Friends.’ I’ve played both tracks as a DJ, and the dancers speak louder than a postmodern legitimacy argument: they prefer the bubbly, club-tuned Justice version. I’m sure that most of the dancers don’t even know it’s a remix, and just assume that it’s ‘Justice’ singing the hook.

This tends to happen with me quite a bit, where I’ll end up liking a remix or a cover version more than the original. So there’s definitely an art to finding a gem and chipping away the cruft.

September 1, 2007 @ 1:47 am

trond

A search for “L’Homme Armé” will put this in perspective. In brief: Good artists borrows, great artists steal.

September 1, 2007 @ 8:57 am

Keith Handy

Frankly, I think sampling is a roundabout waste of energy. I find it more efficient to just go through a record store with a Sharpie, cross out the names of the artists on the records, and just write my own name on them. Saves all the tedious middle steps of having to use all that expensive equipment, not to mention financing the pressing.

September 1, 2007 @ 9:26 am

Peter Kirn

@trond:
I’ve got the COMPOSER of L’Homme Armé right here. And boy, is HE mad. He’s referred me to someone at ASCAP. On the bright side, he’s finally got the answer to who the heck that Man at Arms is. Unfortunately, it turns out to be too lewd to repeat here.

In seriousness, I think there is a difference — using, say, a chant as a compositional motive in a way that actually shows off your compositional technique is VERY different from sampling a groove because you can’t produce something with soul on your own. And that’s not to argue with people who say sampling can be done artfully — on the contrary, that says to me that, even more so, all sampling is not created equal.

I would like to challenge someone to do a L’Homme Armé remix, though; that’d be cool.

September 1, 2007 @ 12:24 pm

paulo

>”Maybe Daft Punk didn’t write the music in the samples. But they sure as hell arranged them in a way that I would consider neoclassical; even neo-baroque.”

Ok, go get your medicine now ;-)

That’s just a pompous way to put a completely irrational point. Put it this way: you like daft punk regardless of what they do. Period.

September 1, 2007 @ 3:47 pm

fudduf

wow liz, you’ve just discounted the artistic validity of practically all hip-hop music with these statements. taking old loops is lame? how old of an argument is this? i expect better from this blog. and frankly, you should’ve been able to figure out that the bulk of those tracks had samples all over them…even if you didn’t know the original source.

there was nothing remotely groundbreaking about “around the world.” daft punk’s best material remains their first couple of EP’s for Soma from 1994-1996 (half of which ended up on Homework). ‘rollin and scratchin’ for instance totally destroyed dancefloors long before they signed to a major label, and nary a sample in sight. it was all downhill after that.

September 1, 2007 @ 8:28 pm

Fidel

I’ve been working on becoming a true composing artist for around 8 or so years. I’ve learned to use many pieces of software you’ve probably heard of and some I’m sure you haven’t. In the beginning my work was all sample based because that was what was available to me at the time. But the more I’ve grown in my knowledge the less I’ve been interested in using any form of hook sampling. Don’t get me wrong. There is a valid use for sampling. Say you get a drum loop and you absolutely love the kick. Fine use that kick. In my mind its essentially like integrating a new bass drum into your kit. Yes you sampled something.. but it’s a note. 1 note. Hook sampling though is horrible, and while a great many artist I love have and will continue to do that; I love them for what they have done to the loop. their art lies in how they have treated the sample or incorporated it among the other elements. I was very pleased when I heard the original “cola bottle baby” because it helped me understand what parts were daft and what parts weren’t. The song Harder Better Faster Stronger, and it’s sequel Technologic sum up perfectly what a perfectionists artists work is. All art is interpretation and what we do with our brushes defines who we are as artists. I once listened to discovery on acid and let me tell you.. mind blowing. Especially HFBS for me towards the end of the track I felt like I was literally hearing somebody melting into a synth. You know what I’m talking about. The Kanye West Track “Stronger” though is the worst absolute aspect of sampling. It’s p.diddy sampling at its worst. Completely unoriginal, I’m ashamed for dance culture that Daft Punk had anything to do with the track. They did something.. even if it was just being in the video. Whats even worse though is that its a crappy song. No “Jesus Walks” is that piece of crap.

September 2, 2007 @ 1:34 am

nick maynard

on one hand, this is really surprising. i had no idea.

on the other though, this isn’t much different than when in a traditional rock band the guitarist comes in with a riff, and then the band adds on to it.

also, the daft punk versions are all incredibly better songs.

September 2, 2007 @ 1:35 am

Gilbert

Probably chiming in a bit too late here, but oh well…

I don’t really have a problem with sampling, even the rip the whole song straight and rapping over it tactic. Not sarcastically, I truly believe that it’s not the same thing anymore. Rapper’s Delight? The groove is just straight ripped off, but it’s still a great classic song. So is Good Times.

What bothers me more personally, is that many people (including some in this thread) will try to say that the remix. (ie. the song doing the sampling is somehow better) Occasionally–but rarely–this is true. Not to say it’s worse, but rather just that the “remix” is different. A lot of the time this difference is mainly knob tweaking and production. In effect it’s the same music, it’s just been given a different era’s “sound”.

I try to be receptive when I listen to music, so I’m much more tolerant of varying production. (than my friends who aren’t into music as much. Do you know anyone who just won’t let mid 90’s alt rock die? I mean, jeez, they’re just fetishizing the sound at this point.) It depresses me a bit that the public at large will like or dislike songs largely on the basis of production. However, I completely understand any DJ out there who plays Daft Punk over the original disco tracks. It’s your job to play what the people want to hear, and you can’t blame Daft Punk for giving the people what they want. You can only really blame the people.

But remember, the music of today, sampled or not, is just fashion. It’ll be passe in 20 years, when most everyone will like the remix better.

September 2, 2007 @ 3:27 am

Scalercio

This is totally ridiculous. I have conservatory training and musical skills and definitely have the ability to never sample anything, but to me sampling is really cool and an extreme sign of the times. There is something awesome about taking a record you like and placing part of it in a totally new context for a new audience. Haters are quick to look to “serious” musicial genres like concert music or jazz as a reason why sampling is not art, but the “classical” canon employs tons and tons of quoting (sometimes composers even lifted complete sections from other composers), and jazz history is filled with the idea of contrafacting tunes to be able to use someone else’s song without paying for it. What is different between those and sampling? Where is the line? Either way, those Daft Punk records are incredible and they are great live.

September 2, 2007 @ 12:21 pm

scntfc

apologies for pimping my own shit here, but its extremely relevant to the issue:
http://www.massmvmnt.com/massdstrction
this is a mix series i’m working on that tackles the issue of sampling and musical “ownership” directly. each mix is essentially a remix of the previous one, so if listened to in order you can hear what was at first an entire song or obvious sample devolve into smaller and smaller fragments. the end result is that the sounds (melodies? songs? drum hits?) becomes blurred to the point where ownership itself is questionable. is it fun to listen to? is it art? is it mine now? who knows.
and in reference to the original post: there’s just too much historical precedent now to even question whether sampling is art. its also pervasive enough within musical culture that the concept of sampling needs to simply be accepted…like synthesizers, or rapping. its artistically valid, end of discussion…whether one likes it or agrees with it is besides the point.
influence is everywhere in music and is just more literal (and easier to litigate) when its a direct audio sample. bands like interpol and jet should be strung up for plagiarism long before dangermouse or girl talk.

September 2, 2007 @ 3:45 pm

L-Dog

What’s all this scandal about daft punk? “Express Yourself” anyone? And really, Digital Love is way better than I Love You More.

September 2, 2007 @ 4:35 pm

question

twenty years ago, in some Atlantic City lounge, a pianist with a bad haircut is shouting to his bassist, “They are fucking replacing us with a one of those no talent disc jockeys! Bastard doesn’t even play an instrument!”

Same old some old soma soma soma

September 2, 2007 @ 5:18 pm

Endif

Sampling other people’s work and passing it off as your own is for the weak. Post-modern wankery.

What’s so hard about programming one’s own beats and hooks? Oh, yeah, that whole ‘talent’ thing; sooo last century!

Feh.

September 2, 2007 @ 6:46 pm

Newmiracle

MAN!! There’s nothing like a genuinely quality internet discussion. Honestly, I think this whole thread speaks volumes about the CDM readership. Cudos.

I wanted to respond to comments specifically, so I started copying and pasting the names and quotes I wanted to address. Then I saw references to “rants”, “not wanting to rant”, so on and so forth. This points to something bigger (imo. continue reading if you bothered to read this far down the page).

Liz, what I think is going on here is that you might have offended some people’s musical sensabilities and/or creative processes. No biggie, these things happen. But what I think is the bigger issue here is people trying to validate or invalidate people’s creative efforts as “art”.

Sometimes I wish we never even came up with the word “art” at all.

These conversations come from what amounts to the intelligencia equivalent to cutting off someone’s balls off. It’s not even that “my VST is better than your sample,” it’s that there’s this kind of implied superiority of “mine vs. yours”.

As pointed out here by:

dan s.

Thank you for saying this so succinctly.

There’s a classic rock guitarist out there RIGHT NOW, RIGHT NOW, saying the same things about you that you are saying about sampling. Furthermore, you would be using the same defences for your ‘pure’ electronic as these dirty ’samplers’ would about their music in the face of ‘classical rock’ critique. Then, even more ironically, is this infinite recursion. The jazz people will say that about the rockers, the classical kids about the jazz kids. So on and so on.

Then, Liz, you go on to say:

But you know what? This is just the same ’step forward’ that can become a ’step back’ in the same sense. Once the price drops below 6 bennies, every kid in the world could get one and pirate their copy of MAX. Then it’s ‘old’ and ‘tired’ and it ‘was soooooo 2008 aaaanyways’ and blah blah blah. So for my next point I’ll move onto my next quote by:

karhu

THANK YOU! A million times, thank you. I feel the whole DJ Shadow argument can somehow be dismantled a little too easily. This is why I will always reference these dudes for the argument. Consider Squarepusher: are those songs going to be as fucking ILL without those amens? Without those james brown “you bad man” breaks? And ONTOP of that, he’s IDMing your goddamn face off with mad cuts and edits. Triplets at the speed of light and stutters for days. Can anyone do that? Well, yes. Because they heard him do it in ‘98.

But it always just settles down to what’s new and exciting, and what isn’t. There’s a kind of special joy we recieve from hearing a song that’s good. It’s that magical combination of originality within the confines of formula and rules that makes it the beautifully coordinated balancing act of beauty. If it’s too ‘original’, it’s just weird for weird’s sake, and has probably been done by some motherfucker 20 years ago anyways. If it sticks to the rules too hard, it’s been done before and isn’t inspiring in the least.

But where the PROBLEM lies (imo) is that people have this weird idea that their personal ideas on that balance make the goddamn bible for musical evaluation. For example, I think that “The Percolator” is one of the top 100 songs of all time (note it’s simplicity but lack of ‘unimaginative’, ‘hook’ or ‘extended’ sampling). But you know what? That’s my top 100. I know why someone would say that I’m 100% wrong. But they can fuck off, seriously. But also, I’m also mature enough to recognize the subjectivity of experience, and realize that in their mind, I’m fucking off. And you know what? That’s ok. In fact, it’s one of those spices of life that make life worth living.

Finally:
Peter Kirn

Rock on, man. I hate to sound like a hippy, but it’s definetly a “whatever” kinda thing. Just do it, and if it’s worth a damn it’ll get respect if it deserves it(in some way or another). These kinds of attitudes require a certain level of maturity that might not be seen in the majority of people.

So in conclusion, I don’t care if it’s passe to write a long post or not. It is what it is, and certain people will gravitate to it and (hopefully) validate it’s expression (just like music… if you’re getting my grand finale here). But ‘making the cut’ artistically through a discerning audience makes for a more enriching and satisfying artistic victory than making an easy ‘win’ with narrowly-adhered-to rules. Accordingly, we’re going to need people who only listen to power noise and call us pussies for liking percussion and melody of any kind. We’re going to need people who are just so hardcore Britney Spears fans that it makes us puke. They define one of the many spectrums (complexity vs. non-complexity, poppy vs. unpalateable, etc) of music that most importantly make us value the connections we have with people who share the same tastes with us. Because, otherwise those connections wouldn’t mean anything. Without these definitions we wouldn’t have a CDM community. ::tear::

Which is why comments likes these:

by Endif are just small commented quips that lack length in order maintain the ever popular jaded viewpoint and more importantly to avoid criticism. So fuck off. And I’ll fuck off with you! Because what do I know, anyways? (Hate to use you as the example, much love regardless) =p

September 3, 2007 @ 2:03 am

Newmiracle

GAH! My XML is bad. Reposting!

September 3, 2007 @ 2:04 am