Sampling: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''It's a context issue, because not every sample is a huge chunk of a song. [...] An example that's often brought up in court when we get sued over sampling is a Biz Markie track where he more or less used a whole Gilbert O'Sullivan song. Because it was such an obvious sample, it's the example lawyers use when trying to prove that sampling is stealing. And that's really frustrating to us as artists who sample, because sampling can be a totally different thing than that.''

{{quote|''"It's a context issue, because not every sample is a huge chunk of a song. [...] An example that's often brought up in court when we get sued over sampling is a Biz Markie track where he more or less used a whole Gilbert O'Sullivan song. Because it was such an obvious sample, it's the example lawyers use when trying to prove that sampling is stealing. And that's really frustrating to us as artists who sample, because sampling can be a totally different thing than that."''

|~~[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/beastie.html~~ Adam Yauch of the] [[Beastie Boys]], on the legal issues of sampling.}}

|'''Adam Yauch''' of the [[Beastie Boys]], on the legal issues of sampling, ''[https://www.wired.com/2004/11/beastie/ The Remix Masters]'' (''Wired'' interview)}}

{{quote|''If creativity is a field, copyright is the fence.''

{{quote|''"If creativity is a field, copyright is the fence."''

|'''John Oswald''', written on his [[Myspace]] profile}}

|[http://www.myspace.com/pfony John Oswald]}}

Taking a portion of an existing musical work, and putting it in a show, video, or another musical work. Not to be confused with interpolation, which is ''replaying'' the said portion.

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== Alternative ==

* ''Negativland''.

** Speaking of which, they got in trouble for sampling [[U2]]. The album with songs sampled from such band would get re-released 10 years later as ''These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit''.

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** "Motion Picture Soundtrack"'s harp parts are sampled from various old Disney movies.

** "Give Up the Ghost" and "Codex" feature sampled bird noises, which [[Fading Into the Next Song|serve to transition from the former to the latter.]]

== Electronic ==

* The album version of "U Don't Know Me" by Armand Van Helden contained a sample from (of all things) a [[Dexter's Laboratory|Dial M For Monkey]] cartoon.

* Virtually every track from the Goa Trance and Psychedelic Trance genres samples a movie, usually a sci-fi one.

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* Covenant's "Shelter" is built around a sample from ''[[The Atomic Cafe]]'': "The atom bomb explodes again!" :nuclear explosion:(several times) "Atomic energy." :sirens: :birds chirping: :explosion: :explosion: :explosion: for the rest of the song.

* ''The Atomic Cafe'' was also sampled on [[KMFDM]]'s ''Don't Blow Your Top'' album, particularly in "Oh Look".

== Folk ==

* Reportedly, [[Sufjan Stevens]]' album ''Enjoy Your Rabbit'' had extensive sampling... from songs that Stevens had recorded himself and never released.

== Hip Hop ==

* Arguable [[Trope Codifier]] - [[The KLF]], which stands for Kopyright Liberation Foundation. They were art-terrorist types who built a musical career on silly, blatant sampling done with no permission, [[Troll|upsetting a lot of people]]. Particularly [[ABBA]].

* The groups which have used this technique to [[Quality by Popular Vote|most critical acclaim]] are: the [[Beastie Boys]] ([[wikipedia:Paulchr(27)s Boutique|''Paul's Boutique'']], produced in collaboration with the Dust Brothers and sampling a whopping total of 105 songs/movies), Public Enemy (the Bomb Squad were famous for creating noisy, intense songs from lots of samples at once), DJ Shadow ([[wikipedia:Endtroducing|''Endtroducing....'']]) and [[Esham]] ([[wikipedia:Judgement Day (album)|''Judgement Day'']]).

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== Metal ==

* Some bands do this in reverse, taking sound clips from movies or tv shows and inserting them into their songs. Dream Theater in particular does this often, a good chunk of "Space-Dye Vest" is made up of sound bites, and the first minute or so of "The Great Debate" is news clips.

** [https://web.archive.org/web/20041019023832/http://www.sloth.org/samples/sourcelist.txt Exhaustive research] has established that the top 5 most sampled non-musical works are: ''[[Blade Runner]]'', NASA, ''Apocalypse Now'', ''[[Alien (franchise)|Aliens]]'', and JFK.

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== Multiple ==

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* Ur-Example - The [[Amen Break]] from an otherwise unknown song "Amen Brother". Used thousands of times, including in underground techno, by famous Drum and Bass artists (Squarepusher, Venetian Snares, et cetera) and rap.

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* Ur-Example - The [[Amen Break]] from an otherwise unknown song "Amen Brother". Used ~~many~~ times in underground techno, by famous ~~[[Dn~~ ~~B]]~~ artists (Squarepusher, Venetian Snares, et cetera), and rap.

** Another Ur-Example: The Funky Drummer break, used [http://www.the-breaks.com/search.php?term=Funky+Drummer&type=4 an insane amount of times], and which also managed to spread beyond hip-hop and into pop.

* John Bonham's drum break from [[Led Zeppelin]]'s "When the Levee Breaks" is a perennial favourite with samplers, as is the synthesizer riff from Tubeway Army's "Are 'Friends' Electric".

== Pop ==

* Probably the earliest use of sampling was [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]]' "I Am The Walrus", on which they (with permission) used samples from a BBC Radio production of ''[[King Lear]]''.

== Punk ==

* The 80's [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|glam-punk]] band Sigue Sigue Sputnik loved sampling from sci-fi movies such as ''[[A Clockwork Orange (film)|A Clockwork Orange]]''.

== R & B ==

== R&B ==

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* In probably the outright laziest cut and paste example, Jason DeRulo's "Whatcha Say" samples "Hide and Seek" by [[Imogen Heap]]; not just the beat, the ACTUAL CLIP FROM THE SONG, lyrics and all.

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* In probably the outright laziest cut and paste example, Jason ~~[[De Rulo]]~~'s "Whatcha Say" samples "Hide and Seek" by [[Imogen Heap]]; not just the beat, the ACTUAL CLIP FROM THE SONG, lyrics and all.

** And then he outdid himself with "Don't Wanna Go Home", which not only interpolates the chorus from "The Banana Boat Song", but also samples the backbeat from Robin S.' "Show Me Love". With a random Lil Jon line also thrown in for good measure.

** "Fight For You" heavily samples "Africa" by Toto.

== Rock ==

* The Verve: "Bittersweet Symphony", sampling an orchestral rendition of the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time". The Rolling Stones' manager sued, won, got royalties and credits on the album. The band broke up shortly thereafter because they'd made no profit after the lawsuit.

* On two separate occasions, Eels have sampled ''themselves'': "Efil's God" is largely based around backwards loops of earlier track "Dog's Life", while a short violin phrase in "Selective Memory" later was prominently looped in "Fresh Feeling".

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== Soundtracks ==

* Possibly the weirdest example ever: the opening theme song to the ''[[Hellsing]]'' OVA, "A World Without Logos," samples from "When You Wish Upon a Star." It's nigh-impossible to pick out unless you know ''exactly'' what you're listening for.

** More specifically, listen for the flute sample at about 2:10 into the song. The surrounding strings are also part of the sample, but the flute melody is particularly distinctive.