Using Samples in Rock Music

Violent & Funky · 10-11-2010, 12:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PAVEMENT SAW

I know why they're talking about Brooklyn but I've always thought the beginning of that song sounded really weird and forced. I like it but it doesn't fit together so it makes me scratch my head a lil' bit.

I can't stand the intro to Tut Tut Shake Your Butt though.....fucking Abraham Lincoln....

I like every sample they use on Skuffed Up My Huffy so I can't say I agree haha. I think that sample works just fine.

I didn't really enjoy Tut Tut Shake Your Butt, however. Too much of a concept album or whatever you want to call it. More kewl jams, bros!

Violent & Funky · 10-11-2010, 12:40 AM

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Originally Posted by jackhammer

Not strictly rock but this is one of my faves which was a B side:

See, now this is what I'm talking about!

Violent & Funky · 10-11-2010, 12:44 AM

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Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

Vocal samples feel like plagiarizing to me. If a song were a paper, I'd say, "Don't just quote someone else. Put the idea in your own words."

How is using some random movie quote sample at the beginning of your song like plagiarizing? Isn't it more like opening a school paper with a quote, which is a really common and respected practice?

VEGANGELICA · 10-11-2010, 09:29 AM

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Originally Posted by sidewinder

I really don't see how it sounds like cheating, when no attempt is made for the samples to sound like the band's own vocals. For me, in the case of Dillinger Four, it adds humor and energy and helps to separate them from other punk bands, IMO.

All in all, I think I appreciate cut & paste technique in music and art, and you may not.

True, I don't appreciate cut & paste techniques in music or in studio arts, really. I agree it can, perhaps, add some ironic humor and the technique may be clever. But ripping the material from someone else seems like a cop-out: you couldn't figure out how to make your point on your own, so you rely on someone else to do it.

I don't mind so much "found" items being used, though, like machine sounds. I mostly just get irked by songs that use clips of other people speaking.

Also, sometimes when I hear songs with clips in them, I don't know where the original stuff and the regurgitated stuff begin and end. It feels as if they are trying to pass someone else's work off as their own. I assume professional musicians give credit where due, but most non-professional nu-break type songs I've heard just steal stuff from here and there and plunk them in the song.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Violent & Funky

How is using some random movie quote sample at the beginning of your song like plagiarizing? Isn't it more like opening a school paper with a quote, which is a really common and respected practice?

When you start a paper with a quote, you provide the source of the quote in the paper, so that is not plagiarizing.

When you lift some part of some random TV show and smack it down in a song to make a point, a listener may not know the source, since it isn't stated within the song. So, that is like plagiarizing.

I prefer songs to be direct. If the musician has something to say, just say it; don't rely on someone else to say it for you. Plus, most of the clips I've heard used seem to be from crappy movies anyway, so I don't see the value in using the clips in the first place.

And usually the songs work just as well without the clips: the clips are not necessary. And if they *are* necessary for the song to make sense...if the whole song is some random instrumental piece that is meaningless without that clip...then I just think the song isn't very good.

Take that "Handbuilt by Perverts" song Jackhammer posted. It goes on about human remains a bit in a clip and then some other random stuff, has a bunch of drumming and repetitive guitar chords thrown in, and the sound of an engine dying at the end. The point? I feel the song would be just as good, or bad, given the unintelligible mumbling and screams, without the human remains clip.

Violent & Funky · 10-11-2010, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

When you start a paper with a quote, you provide the source of the quote in the paper, so that is not plagiarizing.

When you lift some part of some random TV show and smack it down in a song to make a point, a listener may not know the source, since it isn't stated within the song. So, that is like plagiarizing.

What would you have them do? Stop the song and recite the APA citation?

(Sometimes they are cited in the liner notes, sometimes they aren't. I agree that its better when they are.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

I prefer songs to be direct. If the musician has something to say, just say it; don't rely on someone else to say it for you. Plus, most of the clips I've heard used seem to be from crappy movies anyway, so I don't see the value in using the clips in the first place.

And usually the songs work just as well without the clips: the clips are not necessary. And if they *are* necessary for the song to make sense...if the whole song is some random instrumental piece that is meaningless without that clip...then I just think the song isn't very good.

Take that "Handbuilt by Perverts" song Jackhammer posted. It goes on about human remains a bit in a clip and then some other random stuff, has a bunch of drumming and repetitive guitar chords thrown in, and the sound of an engine dying at the end. The point? I feel the song would be just as good, or bad, given the unintelligible mumbling and screams, without the human remains clip.

I just don't think you are destined to like the kind of music that bands who use samples perform...

sidewinder · 10-11-2010, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

you couldn't figure out how to make your point on your own, so you rely on someone else to do it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

I prefer songs to be direct. If the musician has something to say, just say it; don't rely on someone else to say it for you. Plus, most of the clips I've heard used seem to be from crappy movies anyway, so I don't see the value in using the clips in the first place.

To be honest I think you are completely missing the point of how these artists are using vocal samples. There's something about a recognizeable sample from an old source (whether I recognize it or not). If you were to sing that quote yourself, there's really no connection to the movie. And it's not that this can work with just any type of music. I can't see some singer-songwriter douche using a movie clip in the middle of one of his songs and it sounding good. He's turn that quote into poetry or something, and sing and make the girls cry with love. But for certain genres of music, a sound byte is just awesome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

And usually the songs work just as well without the clips: the clips are not necessary. And if they *are* necessary for the song to make sense...if the whole song is some random instrumental piece that is meaningless without that clip...then I just think the song isn't very good.

I beg to differ, and that doesn't make a song less good for relying on samples. If a band incorporates samples from other sources, that's part of their style. Removing the samples could make their music sound like another somewhat similar band. What would be the point in that? If one doesn't like the sound, they can listen to other bands that don't use vocal samples. But for me it adds character and sometimes shows the artists' influences for their music. That's not the say that the music wouldn't sound good without the samples, but it could completely change the sound too.

Again I just think you're missing the point and this type of music isn't for you.

**Janszoon** · 10-11-2010, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

True, I don't appreciate cut & paste techniques in music or in studio arts, really. I agree it can, perhaps, add some ironic humor and the technique may be clever. But ripping the material from someone else seems like a cop-out: you couldn't figure out how to make your point on your own, so you rely on someone else to do it.

I don't mind so much "found" items being used, though, like machine sounds. I mostly just get irked by songs that use clips of other people speaking.

Also, sometimes when I hear songs with clips in them, I don't know where the original stuff and the regurgitated stuff begin and end. It feels as if they are trying to pass someone else's work off as their own. I assume professional musicians give credit where due, but most non-professional nu-break type songs I've heard just steal stuff from here and there and plunk them in the song.

So do you invent all your own chords when you make music or do you just steal chords that were invented by somebody else?

Violent & Funky · 10-11-2010, 05:23 PM

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Originally Posted by Janszoon

So do you invent all your own chords when you make music or do you just steal chords that were invented by somebody else?

I know I invent my own language for each song I compose...

**Janszoon** · 10-11-2010, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidewinder

To be honest I think you are completely missing the point of how these artists are using vocal samples. There's something about a recognizeable sample from an old source (whether I recognize it or not). If you were to sing that quote yourself, there's really no connection to the movie.

Exactly. The connection that's made by the sample is the whole point. With a band like, say, Skinny Puppy sampling is part of a postmodern aesthetic that's evokes a sense of mass media detritus recombining into something new. Taking that away would be removing something very essential in making the music great art.

VEGANGELICA · 10-11-2010, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Violent & Funky

What would you have them do? Stop the song and recite the APA citation?

Well, that would be interesting! Has anyone done it yet? Hmmm....ideas, ideas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidewinder

To be honest I think you are completely missing the point of how these artists are using vocal samples. There's something about a recognizeable sample from an old source (whether I recognize it or not). If you were to sing that quote yourself, there's really no connection to the movie. ... Removing the samples could make their music sound like another somewhat similar band. What would be the point in that? If one doesn't like the sound, they can listen to other bands that don't use vocal samples. But for me it adds character and sometimes shows the artists' influences for their music.

Again I just think you're missing the point and this type of music isn't for you.

It's probably true that I don't appreciate the point of the music. Maybe I'm not a big enough movie or TV buff to appreciate it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janszoon

So do you invent all your own chords when you make music or do you just steal chords that were invented by somebody else?

Yes. All of them. I have no clue what chord I'm playing most of the time. Really!

(Okay, okay, you can stop the arm hold, I'll admit it...I stole C, G, E, A, and F something...uh, and Barr chords.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janszoon

Exactly. The connection that's made by the sample is the whole point. With a band like, say, Skinny Puppy sampling is part of a postmodern aesthetic that's evokes a sense of mass media detritus recombining into something new. Taking that away would be removing something very essential in making the music great art.

I get what you're saying about the mass media detritus combining into something new. Maybe my gripe is that the detritus wasn't appealing to me the first time around, and it just doesn't seem like musicians are using it innovatively. They play a few seconds here or there in a song and often the song seems to have nothing to do with the clips.

Also, the connection of which you speak is often lost on me, since I usually don't know where it came from or what its broader significance was. Except for The Simpsons clips or clips of the "I have a dream" speech. I don't mind Simpsons clips so much, but urg, "I have a dream" speech clips in songs drive me bonkers. And wasn't there some post 9/11 song using clips of various people talking. Ugh! History set to icky patriotic music. Here...here it is: