Amen Break/Copyright Criminals/Examples from my childhood included.
The first thing that caught my attention with the Amen Break video is that at first it did not at all sound familiar to me… I tried thinking real hard about it, and even though I listen to artists such as Nero and Skrillex, I could not really place my finger on the drumming sample. I was pretty sure I had heard it somewhere before though, and then I got to scrolling through the comments.
It was tucked away in my childhood memories, and I am sure I have heard the sample numerous times and just have not realized it.
In the reading today, it is stated that “Music poses significant difficulties both because the rights are more complicated and because the rights holders are often the most vigilant about enforcing copyrights and the greediest in seeking payments.” (Cohen, Rozensweig, Owning the Past/Images, Music, and Movies). I guess in the case of the Amen Break this isn’t true because none of the musicians involved in the making of that song seemed to even care that they were being completely ripped off in its continued use without their permission. Even in Copyright Criminals, Sage Francis says that “people who are suing or don’t understand what’s so great about sample based music really needs to see it happen over the course of a year.” (~8:45) So maybe it was not such a bad thing that the Winstons didn’t seek action against the hundreds of artists who have and still are using that brief drumming solo. Even though the break is in a ton of songs now not related to the original artist, it has produced many individual and original songs by them allowing people to use it without permission. Not to say that is the right thing for these people to be doing, but since it has been done for so long maybe most of the people who are using it do not even know where it originated and probably would not recognize the band’s name.
The Copyright Criminals video on Hulu really drew my attention towards how much work actually went into sample based music (and I have to say the guy at ~10:00 has awesome hair). I have had friends in the past who called themselves musicians and would make 100% electronic music using Fruity Loops and they would slave for hours on end trying to create their own base lines, drum lines, harmonics, and all that jazz. It was interesting to me because I knew sample based music existed, but I never understood why they would not use it even just once in a while. I did not know then that there were people who kept basically entire warehouses of old vinyls and would go over them just finding these samples. It seems a lot of the artists included in this video are going the same way as the Winstons and just allowing people to sample their music without needing to ask for their permission. Around ~11:00 when Clyde Stubblefield’s being interviewed, he mentions some of the types of music he heard his own drumbeats in and only wondered why they chose that song to sample instead of, what would be in his opinion, a better song from James Brown. He just laughs and makes no mention of being offended or feeling ripped off at all.
I think in its own way, sample based music is helping preserve the history of music. I would not say that there is no one around these days who still listens to bands like the Winstons and artists like James Brown because that would be an incredibly blind statement to make (my dad still listens to James Brown, so just right off the bat I know I cannot make that statement!), but maybe some day people really will have mostly forgotten these artists… but then one day they’ll hear a beat they like or a sampling of music they like in another song and trace that sample back to the original artist, like what they hear, and in a sense keep the memory of the older musicians alive.
Lame example:
When I was 8 I remember my sister bringing “Dangerous Minds” back from Blockbuster. I was not really paying attention to the movie, I was probably sitting at the dinner table coloring or something, but I heard a song in the movie that I could not forget.
The song was familiar to me, but it caused me to immediately ask my mom who the artist was. She (obviously) had no idea who the rapper was, but she recognized the sample in the song as the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” Until that point in my life I had probably heard the Jackson 5 a handful of times in the car on the Oldie’s station, but after I heard that song with the sample of their music I had never really cared. That weekend I had my mom take me to the local used CD store and with my $5 saved up of allowance I was able to buy the Jackson 5’s “Diana Ross Presents… the Jackson 5” album.
To this day it is still one of my favorite songs. Without the help of “Dangerous Minds” I would have never really cared about it.
*I’m sorry I posted this entry a bit late! I had a few family obligations and a wedding to attend this weekend and found myself buried beneath cocktails, croquette, and lazy rivers (horrible, I know!).
proof of my unusually swanky weekend at the Homestead!