“Peter Piper” is the leadoff track on Raising Hell, the third album by Run-DMC. It was their big commercial and critical breakthrough. My stepbrother Dan had it on cassette and it pretty much defined the sound of my sixth and seventh grade experience.
Tag Archives: copyright
God don’t ever give me nothing I can’t handle, so please don’t ever give me records I can’t sample
The title is a lyric by Kanye West on Common’s track “They Say.” A hundred percent of my musical energy right now is coming from and going into sample-based music. To wit: Records I Can’t Sample [audio:http://ethanhein.com/music/Ethan_Hein_Records_I_Cant_Sample.mp3] Me vs Michael Jackson vs Herbie Hancock vs Missy Elliot vs Kanye West vs Fab Five Freddy mp3 …
The Michael Jackson sample map goes viral
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 …
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The natural history of the Funky Drummer break
“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 …
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No one has ever written an original song
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 …