Showing posts with label Sampling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sampling. Show all posts

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Who watched the Royal Variety Performance on New Year's Eve...?

I won't rant too much here (or maybe I will), but if you know me or my blog even a little, then you will know that one of my hugest gripes is that of "sampling" in music - i.e. the act of taking an existing track (composed by another artist), and then adding different lyrics to it.

The end result, unfortunately, is a track that is considered to be completely new and original, especially if the track that was sampled is from decades ago.
So you end up with youngsters jamming to some "cool" new track that they skeem is lekker kief (sorry guys, had to throw in some South African slang there...), not realising that the so-called artist basically just stole someone else's song and made millions off of it.

One such track that caught my attention was showcased on New Year's Eve 2013, on the Royal Variety Performance.
I usually enjoy most of the performances on the show, however this one just made me wanna be sick.
And I wasn't even drunk.

This act call themselves "Rizzle Kicks", and they are an English hip hop duo who basically pretend to be talented. And they pretty much suck at that as well.
Granted, I have not heard or seen any of their other work, but let me paint a brief outline of their performance (which was put on in front of Prince Charles no less...):

- They performed a track called "Skip to the Good bit", which unfortunately only had bad bits in it.
The real kicker is that they sample (almost entirely) from the hugely successful 90's EMF track "Unbelievable", and they do a fantastic job of destroying the original track.

- Not only was their track terrible, but even the lip-syncing they were doing was odd. One of the duo looked like he was watching what the other was lip-syncing, and then trying to keep up with vague movements of his lips. Awesome.

- Finally, when the track ended (and the audience rejoiced in relief), the duo couldn't even finish their performance gracefully and nearly fell over when the music stopped. Top notch professionals these guys.

Remind me again why plagiarists people like this make millions?
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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

I wonder when some random newbie pseudo-musician will wreck "Come on Eileen"...

I would guess that "Come on Eileen", by Dexys Midnight Runners, must be one of the most instantly recognizable and popular dancefloor songs pretty much all over the world.
The track is a great example of a "one-hit wonder", although the band did achieve a number one spot on the UK charts 2 years earlier with their song "Geno".

Nowadays, however (as I moaned about in one of my posts last year), anybody who wants to be cool, just picks a popular track that someone else wrote, and records their own dumb lyrics over the tune.
This is called "sampling", and it allows pretty much anybody to become a musician overnight.
They rely on the fact that the new generation of teeny boppers were not even born yet when the original track was actually aired, so their new abomination is now seen as "original" and they become instant stars off the original artists' hard work.

So I wonder... how long will it be until someone decides to create a train-smash out of one of the greatest number 1 singles of all time...?
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Sampling.. the lazy way to make music

When last did you hear a track on the radio and think to yourself: "Hey I know that tune...!", only to be horrified when you hear the new lyrics of the song, which have simply been pasted over the original tune...
To make matters worse, the new artist then claims the track as their own, and makes whackloads of money out of it!

They call this "sampling" in the music industry, which I think is fine and good when using a short segment of another track.
A good example of this would be the bassline for the early 90's Vanilla Ice track "Ice Ice Baby" - Vanilla Ice made use of the original bassline from the Queen & David Bowie 80's track "Under Pressure".

Nowadays, however, it seems the norm is to use an entire song, dump the original lyrics and make up your own.
Anybody who grew up in the 80's will remember a track called "Echo Beach" by Martha and the Muffins - a fantastic tune and definitely a classic.
File:Echo Beach cover.jpg
Now a South African born artist living in London called "Mpho", has released her debut album entitled "Pop Art".
Among the tracks on her album is one called "Box n Locks" - give it a listen and you will very quickly realize that it is essentially the original track "Echo Beach", but with new lyrics sung in a different tune to the original.

So am I the only one who thinks that all the sampling going on nowadays is a bit fishy?
I mean cover versions are one thing - there is a clear reference and credit to the original artist who actually created the track, whereas sampling allows anybody to create their "own" music by using the creative property of somebody else!

Grab your inverter now and be prepared for Load Shedding!

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