I’ve been making sample maps, diagrams showing what songs include samples of what other songs. I’m a big sample geek. I like knowing where my music comes from the same way I like knowing where my food comes from. This map shows many, probably not nearly all, of the songs that sample Michael Jackson’s solo …
Continue reading “The Michael Jackson sample map goes viral”
“The Funky Drummer Parts One And Two” by James Brown and the JBs is one of the most-sampled recordings in history. But even though the track is a cornerstone of hip-hop and other sample-based electronic music, for the first decade after its release, it was an obscurity. It’s not as catchy as James Brown’s big …
Continue reading “The natural history of the Funky Drummer break”
Sampling, remixing and mashups make some people angry. A lot of people think that repurposing existing ideas is bad, that it’s lazy, or a form of stealing. We value originality highly. Should we? My own experience of music making is that there are no original ideas. There are novel combinations of old ideas, but it’s …
