It's not pointless because of name-calling, it's pointless because even if you do have a superior argument, you're probably not going to change anybody's mind. I just gave a good argument as to why sampling isn't plagiarism, but I doubt JayJamJah or boo boo think of it any differently.

With that outlook you may as well not talk to anybody. Seriously, it's just good fun.

No, with that outlook I may as well not argue with anybody on MB. At least not boo boo. Arguing with him is kinda like masturbating with a cheese grater.

Damn, I thought I was the only caseusmemorphiliac here...

...

I'm a Mars Volta fanboy and even I don't know what the hell that means. :(

Not really, in the old days rap songs sampled pretty heavly and it often made up the whole beat for a song, seriously you could listen to any P-Funk or War song and rest assured that there was one rap song that stole the whole bassline from it and ran with it.

C'mon, DJ Shadow made a whole goddamn album out of sampling other peoples material and you're telling me its no big deal? But Zeppelin playing an incredibly generic simple guitar part that just happens to sound samilar to something another band used is?

I could name other songs that sound samilar to the Stairway riff other than Taurus, that just means certain melodies are very simple and thus its not unusual to find god knows how many songs that may have a similar version of that melody. Its just like how Smells Like Teen Spirit is accused of being a ripoff of at least a dozen different songs that all have a similar riff.

Stairway isn't anymore similar to Taurus than say, Nothing at All by Gentle Giant.



This song predates Stairway by a year, and it just as likely inspired it as Taurus did, even the beginning vocals sound very similar. If you ask me it's bull****, you write anything in a given style, scale or time signature, with all the music in the world theres gonna be something similar.

Example.



And those are just a few examples, metal bands rip off each other all the time, so do punk bands.

Yes, I'm saying that it's not a big deal that DJ Shadow made an entire album out of samples because "if I were to play you every song that he sampled, then play you his album, I highly doubt you'd be able to specify when each song was being sampled." And no, I don't think the whole Stairway thing is a "big deal". I just think Zeppelin are generally given a little more credit than they deserve and people often overlook the fact that they did plagiarize quite a bit in their earlier days just because they're Led Zeppelin.

As far as the second half of your post goes, I don't know what the hell you're going on about. Yes, sometimes bands write riffs that sound the same. Good job. Figure that out all by yourself?

Using Hip Hop as an equal example of plagarising riffs is not a good argument. The artists ADMIT they use samples and lines. That is the whole purpose (at least of early Hip Hop). It was kids sampling sections out of certain songs and rhyming over the top. This was done because A) they were not musicians and did'nt admit to be and B) They wanted their voices to be heard so what better way than to have a recognisable beat underpinning the words?

I wont mention any plagarism that was/was'nt commited by Led Zep because my knowledge is'nt sufficient enough but using Hip Hop as a comparison is a weak argument.

This is true, the only one i could recognise is Bjork's Possibly Maybe on Mutual Slump.
Sampling can be a beautiful thing and a complex artform in it's own right y'see, when done right it's just as inventive as the records it uses (Paul's Boutique comes to mind).

Paul's Boutiques samples are pretty obvious though, probably because it mostly samples very popular songs, as does Licensed to Ill.

I admit that guys like DJ Shadow use samples more creatively. Guys like NWA and a lot of the other gangster rappers however pretty much get all their beats from other peoples songs and they don't alter them much. I'm not trying to discredit them for this, and thats my point, people borrow all the damn time.

And no it IS a reasonable comparison, yes I know sampling is accepted as a common tool for hip hop music, thats why I think it's hypocritical. Weither they admit to doing it or not is besides the point.