April 27, 2023 • 56 mins
What happens when your favorite artist uses a sample in their own work? Are they merely inspired, or are they stealing? In the second part of this special two-part episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore the -- wait for it -- ridiculously complicated legalities surrounding the science and art of sampling in the modern day.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Histories, the production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
(00:27):
show Ridiculous Historians. Let's give it up for the man,
the myth legend super producer, mister Max Williams. Sunday Sunday Sunday.
We're fresh off Monster Jam. This week we're talking all
about the history of sampling, which, as my good pal
Nol pointed out, is very near and dear to the
(00:48):
three of us. They called me ben Noel. This is
a part two, so I guess we should tell people
or ask people to sample part one first.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Huh, Yes, exactly, put it on your little sampler platter,
skewer it with a with a tiny toothpick.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Enjoy it's it's delicious flavor. Yes, so let's let's cut.
Let's cut straight to hip hop. Sampling has become inherently
associated with the world of hip hop, the world of dance.
It starts even before hip hop was called hip hop.
(01:23):
It it really starts in the seventies, but the affordability
of these sampling machines in the eighties becomes the and
I rarely use this phrase because I hate when corporate
types do it. It becomes the inflection point. It is
the inflection point. Indeed. Uh, but we're talking about folks.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
This is this is even separate from folks who are
able to all of a sudden afford those samplers that
we're talking about, the NPCs and sp twelve hundreds of
the world, right that might still have only been you know,
affordable as a relative term. No, it wasn't the price
of a fair light or a frickin melotron. But these
things we were still not, you know, affordable to just anybody.
(02:02):
But what was available to just about anybody was a turntable. Yes,
it was a household item right.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Right, because a lot of people have record players, because
people like music. So your parents, did you know what
I mean? Yea, yeah. So I want to shout out
this really cool thing on Drunk History, which obviously is
a show that we love. On this show, there is
an interview or a story narrated by Questlove of the
(02:32):
Roots and it's all about the invention of the scratch.
Please do watch that. It's just a wonderful segment. The
history spot on Questlove is a walking encyclopedia of all
things hip hop. We'll talk about what you're what you've
set up so beautifully for US records. There's a DJ,
cool Herk. Cool Herk knows how to read a room,
(02:56):
knows how to move a crowd. Cool Herk has one problem.
He doesn't want the party to stop. So he says,
I've got to figure out how to extend drum beats right,
Uh in these records that I'm playing. Yeah. Functional, So
he gets two records together, uh and the same months,
and this the Merry Ground it's called Yeah, they're the same,
(03:17):
they're identical records, and he mixes them together to make
the drum breaks longer. And this is where we see
the emergence of or one of the ingredients what you
would call an MC today. MCS for the master's ceremony, right,
like like in dance hall when people would make toast right,
or there's a little bit of the old Grio storytelling
(03:38):
involved there. This Yeah, this MC will come up and
they're the hype person at the party. They're not the
main event, the DJs the main event. They're the person
who is like, oh right, everybody, you could have been
anywhere tonight, but you're here. You know, we got DJ
Coole hurt Uh. And there's this these intros because more
(04:00):
ornates more elaborate, right, They become their own sort of instruments,
and this is ultimately evolves into what you would call rapping.
And producers love this, they love these block parties. But
it's like an ice sculpture, you know what I mean.
It's beautiful in the moment. How do we capture this,
(04:22):
how do we bring it out past? You know, for
you when the cops shut us down, they start making
these songs.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
It's really interesting that you point out the relationship between
the MC and the DJ, because I think this is
you know, if this is early seventies, this would have
been happening kind of in parallel with disco. They would
have been more in like, you know, more affluent neighborhoods,
you know, and maybe like midtown, downtown New York, LA.
You know, all of this kind of stuff. And these
(04:53):
these parties that you're talking about were happening in the street,
like these were these were block parties, These were you know,
outdoor kind of very affairs. So there was this kind
of parallel track. But all what it had in common
was the star of the show was recorded music. Yes,
it was sort of this era of like live music
was almost.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Waning a little bit not waning.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I mean, of course there were big you know, rock
shows and stadium shows, but you would go to those
to see your favorite artists.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
You're going to these things to dance. So going back
to this, the idea of hip hop sampling again, it
reminds me of this. It's just wonderful quote I heard
from a vegan Japanese chef who said that she found
her creativity in constraints, right, and she said, actually makes
(05:40):
me a much better chef because I have I have
restricted sort of the palette with which I can paint.
And hip hop sampling comes from these limitations. Like you
said earlier, you know you are forced in by necessity, right,
you were forced into creativity because you can't afford a
(06:03):
formal music education.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
You may not be able to pay the per hour
rate for studio time. How you want to have a
harp on your song, But do you know anyone who
plays a harp? Do you know anyone who can afford
a harp? Honestly, I don't know anyone who can play
a harp. In twenty twenty three, I've met some people,
but I don't have like a harp. Guy, I can text.
I got a harp guy. Actually, it's just funny, man Like, just.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Having a recording studio and working on different stuff, you
end up finding people that play all kinds of different weirds.
I'm not I just happen to know who plays the
harp and dude, that's the thing though, to your point, Ben,
that is such a niche specific discipline and to even
own a harp, that is such a commitment. That is
(06:50):
such a commitment to the one thing. Right with turntables,
you could commit to everything because you can. You just
buy the record and then you can like, you know,
here's a little bit of this little bit of that
mix it up.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
You don't have to have a heart.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
We don't even have no sax player or even a
drummer because that method that you were talking about that
DJ cool Hirk was doing to extend those beats. You
just buy two copies of the same record, and then
you can use what's called a mixer and a cross
fader to juggle back and forth. When the break ends
on the left side, left player, you turn it over
started on the right side, and then you pick the
(07:24):
needle back up put it on the beginning of the
break again on the left side. When the right side's done,
boom over to the right. You can make it completely seamless.
And if you ever, I know you have been witnessed
a DJ at the top of their game doing these
kinds of manipulations.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
It is like magic. It's so incredible to behold. It's
pretty cool. And there's a whole that we could do
a whole episode on DJ because there are you know,
as with any art form, there are controversies, right, there
are different schools of thought. We should also shout out
a producer, Marley Marril. This guy chopped up drum kind
(08:00):
of like a music concrete thing, chopped up drum breaks
to make new drum patterns, like you were saying, finding
new repetitions and cyclical intervals in this stuff. And then
we know that DJs, to your point, the DJs from
particularly the South Bronx were manipulating vinyl, right, they were
(08:21):
sampling this stuff, but they were cooking live and I
think that's really that's part of the art of DJing.
And again, can't cannot emphasize I'm not a fan of
over hyping stuff, so I don't say it lightly ridiculous historians.
I cannot emphasize how cool. That quest love story from
Drunk History is you really should watch it. If you
don't like it, then I don't know what to tell you.
(08:43):
You might hate music.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It's possible, but we still didn't exactly. This stuff wasn't
mainstream yet. Now it was all happening in these blog parties,
you know, because like I said, disco was mainstream, but
they weren't sampling. Those records were made with live bands,
those records, the recordings were made in the studios with
five stands. Very expensive, right, and they sounded expensive, you know.
(09:08):
But this stuff, this phenomenon was kind of happening under
the radar, and they didn't really have kind of a
flagship singular sound associated with them.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yet.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That would change with the advent of the Sugar Hill
Gang's rappers Delight, which you know, used some of these
kinds of grooves and sounds and turntably, you know, manipulations
and created a song that became really popular. That song
and of itself is an episode because it actually there
is an episode about that song on a show that
(09:41):
I worked on called The Speed of Sound with Steve Greenberg,
who kind of came up as a record executive through
all these times that we're talking about, and the Sugar
Hill Gang were kind of they weren't really very beloved
in the up and coming hip hop community because it
was kind of considered a little cliche, and and they
were backed by like the Mob.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
It's really interesting. So check that story out in and
of itself.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
But now you kind of have these songs starting to
really break through, you know, on the airwaves.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, yeah, you really do see it like this. This
gets the attention of the industry eventually, right, the powers
that be in the world of music, the folks who
own those studios, those elaborate, high end studios where mainstream
music is produced, they start getting interested in this thing.
(10:36):
And look, we also hip hop is awesome. All three
of us think hip hop is awesome, and we are
very careful to note that hip hop is not the
only thing happening in this realm. If you go across
the pond, you see folks like Pop Will Eat Itself,
Cold Cut, the Art of Noise. These are sample These
(11:00):
are rock, pop and dance music samples that they're using.
And it might not sound like hip hop, but it
has some of the same branches of the family tree
or roots. That's how trees grow, trees grow from roots.
So yeah, Noel, you know I'm leaning on a lot
of your knowledge as a multi instrumentalist. I never missed
(11:25):
the chance to brag about your talents there. Yeah, well,
thank you. You know you're really good. So I wanted
to ask you, when we're talking about sampling in the
world of British music in the late eighties and early nineties,
is this something that a lot of people in the
(11:46):
US would recognize stuff like popoly to itself and so on.
It depends.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I mean, you know, the Art of Noise are a
very influential kind of sample based group that could be
considered sort of a proto industrial kind of group. So
this is the kind of sampling where we're not necessarily
talking about recognizable samples through other pieces of music. We're
talking more about that sampling as an instrument unto itself.
(12:12):
If you think about you know, Nine Inch Nails, for example,
Pretty Hate Machines, the record that came out in the
late eighties, the sampling on that album is mainly like
the sounds of machinery and like you know, grinding gears
and you know, weird textural kind of bits. So it's
a way of using sampling or you know, manipulation of
(12:34):
recorded material to add texture, to add vibe, you know,
and it's not necessarily like to extend a drum break
or to have some sort of loop that someone might
recognize as sort of like a nod or an easter egg,
like you said. And this is all in the UK
where this stuff is blowing up. Pop will eat itself
cold cut the art of noise. You know, as we know,
(12:57):
the charts in the UK do not always the charts
in the United States. There's a lot more kind of
maybe off the beaten path sort of more unusual music
that does chart very well in the UK in terms
of dance music, in terms of like indie music, things
like that that we maybe wouldn't It's a little different
(13:17):
now being such a global world with the Internet and all.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
But back in the eighties, before you had this kind
of stuff, you wouldn't have even known about a lot
of these artists because unless you like, you know, were
really tuned into what was going on there via like zines,
which are you know, d DIY kind of printed music
magazines or pop culture magazines. So but now you know,
we live in this totally kind of global, less isolated,
(13:44):
but also somehow more isolated world where you kind of
know about what's going on depending on where your interests lie,
you know, outside of the country that you might live in. Yeah, exactly.
This is a great paradox of our age, you know,
and we're the average ridge music listeners always cognizant of
(14:04):
where a sample came from the providence or whatever.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Probably not, and you don't need to be to enjoy
the music itself. We do know that as technology continued
to develop, as these inventions, this musical equipment and gear
became miniaturized, became more sophisticated and more user friendly. We go.
It spread all around the world, and people were able
(14:30):
to get increasingly precise with the samples they took. You
might not have to just sample the entirety of the
entirety of a song, right, take all the two to
four bars of a loop. You could take individual parts
from various songs. You can pick and choose. Now I
just want you know, Now, I just want the sousaphone
(14:52):
from here. Now I just want this one part of
this vocal, and I want at a cappella. You can
start doing that. And one great example of this and
how it comes full circle is a nineteen ninety five
single from Lord Finesse called Hip to the Game, wherein
he samples some vocals, some ad libs really from James
(15:14):
Brown of Augusta Fame, some drums from band called Detroit Emeralds,
and then some harmonies and some melodies from Oscar Peterson
and then some additional percussion from Millie and Silly. It
puts all this together and synthesizes something new. And now
you know, we can also talk about I think something
(15:35):
that you and I and our pal Jeff all love
the band The Avalanches.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Oh my god, yeah, it was only a matter of
time The Avalanches since I left you. In addition to
DJ Shadows introducing are two album that really took the
art of sampling in a completely different direction. Because again,
while there might be little snippets within these that you
might recognize, kind of like if you were real jazz
(16:10):
head back in the day and you knew that little
little blip that the saxophonist was referencing, you know, from
another performer, these guys DJ Shadow and The Avalanches are
what you call create diggers. These are folks that find
stuff from yesteryear. You know, very esoteric records that would
(16:30):
not have been very popular, and they slice and dice
them to create something entirely new, you know. Not to
mention you mentioned the idea of having a cappella vocals.
When sampling became kind of the order of the day,
you would have forty five single versions of dance tracks
that would have an instrumental version on the B side,
(16:53):
or maybe an a cappella version on the B side.
Because anyone that knows about manipulating music, you know, if
you have a recording that is vocals and everything in there,
short of finding a section of it that doesn't have
the vocals, everything's locked together. You can't separate it. You
could use some equalization and maybe cut some of the
low frequencies and maybe emphasize the vocal, but you're not
(17:15):
going to have a purely music free version unless an
artist decides to release a a cappella version, and they
would only do that with the knowledge that a DJ
might use that and drop it on top of another break.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And I gotta tell you that to me shows the
collaborative nature here because think about it, you are a musician,
You're creating stuff. This still happens with a lot of
hip hop, a single comes out and you'll have the
version that has the verses on it, the vocals, and
then you'll have that instrumental version. Because this is true,
(17:54):
it's meant for other up and coming and sees and
producers to be able to digest that music, to make
it their own in some way, and it spreads your
original song as well. It can be when it works,
it can be a win win, and you can make
new music entirely from samples.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, And like like I said, there are those two
records that we're talking about since I left you and
introducing those records are made almost entirely out of snippets
of samples. But unless you were coming to it with
a deep knowledge of you know, the source material, which
is I mean we're talking hundreds and hundreds of samples.
(18:37):
This is not music made to feel necessarily referential to
a specific song. It's more using this stuff to create
kind of a nostalgic pastiche that just sort of is
meant to be sort of bathed in, you know, it's
a sonic tapestry as opposed to like here's the you know,
(18:57):
the eight bar drum break from Funky drummer, you know,
by James Brown and if you if you happen to
pick out little bits, that's part of the fun too.
Of course, there are whole websites like WhoSampled dot com.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
I'm actually on.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
It's phenomenal where it'll actually go through and dissect the
best of.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Whom at whatever internet.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
You know, music sleuth stability, exactly what was used, and
this stuff will be combined with synthesizers and you know,
drum machine sounds. But typically you know these artists like
DJ Shadow is a DJ, like he is a turntablist,
and you will hear scratchy kind of you know, sounds
like turntable manipulation, the avalanches they use you know, records
(19:39):
and they are DJs, but they're not like super you know,
proficiently scratchy, you know DJ turntableists. They're much more producers.
So you start to get into like the sampling as paint,
you know, the sampling as color, right.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, And also I like to from a creative perspective,
I like to think of it as building a band
in your head. You know, like these like Wallace Collection,
who got sampled by Skinny on a beautiful day you guys,
remember that song. That's that's a beautiful example. They they
had no idea what would happened to the music they
(20:17):
created when they were making it, and then Skinny comes
along and says, hey, I wish this stuff all worked together.
I think that's pretty cool, and I think it's going
to continue despite the controversies we're going to talk about.
I think it's going to continue because the technology continues
(20:37):
to evolve as well, and tracks are merging seamlessly together.
Like when it's It's almost like the idea that Chekhov
has about being a good author. The author disappears right.
The samples no longer sound like samples, and a lot
of these things they just sound as though they are
(20:58):
part of one amazingly created, eclectic, cohesive song, and anyone
to our earlier point in Part one about democratization of
technology and creativity, anyone with a digital audio workstation can
edit and manipulate samples in their own songs today. In
my opinion, one great example of sampling from our days
(21:23):
in the trenches of podcasting is a little top secret
project that we used to call the anti podcast This.
I think the statute of limitations has passed, but good
friend of the show, Tristan McNeil, and several of several
of our producers in the family did this beautiful thing
(21:46):
where they started taking out takes and bloopers from some
of your favorite podcasters and making them into tracks. And
Max were you involved with this?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
I was non involved with that. That was a little
before my time at the company. But I have made
one of the two of y'all on a recording of
stuff that I want you to know. When y'all use
the term that I had coin called girking, Yes, I've
made the Girking that has not been released to the public.
I don't think it is safe to release to the public.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I don't think.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I don't think iHeart would love that out in you
know the world.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
But yes, might be our might be for our Criterion
collection right when when, Yeah, when Criteria moves into podcasting.
So this is where we're at now. We're now going
closer to the present day. It's not just for hip hop.
You will hear this in electronic music, of course, like
(22:40):
some of your favorite house, jungle, drum and based stuff
also utilizes sampling to great effect. And we can still
see that evolution happening in real time, the old school
hip hop producers inspired people like Ya, inspired people like
Timbaland and the Neptunes, all of whom have made wonderful tracks.
(23:05):
Putting personalities aside, They've all made wonderful tracks at one
point or another. And this sampling kind of it plays
a big part in defining the era of hip hop
at a given at a given time, right, and now
it's even now it's even becoming I would say the
interval between an original song and a sample is continuing
(23:26):
to shrink. Like in hip hop, it's not uncommon for
someone to say, like jay Z's ninety nine Problems right,
produced with Rick Rubin. I believe jay Z's ninety nine
Problems didn't come out all that long ago in the
span of history. But now it's not uncommon to hear
songs coming out today where an MC verbally checks it
(23:49):
and they talk about their ninety nine problems.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Right, or the hundredth problem, or it might be because yeah,
And that's where the line between sampling and kind of
interpolation because very interesting because it's all, you know, in
a sense, a way of kind of check name checking
or sound checking pop culture, you know, and then kind
of tying your thing into a history, you know, and
(24:13):
being part of this whole conversation, because I mean, music,
at the end of the day, is just another oral tradition, right.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
One hundred percent, which is why we shout out grio's
when we talked about the early days of MC's. So
this is something you have probably run into if you
have ever worked in the field of audio, not even music. Okay,
give you another little war story. Way back in the day,
(24:41):
when podcasts had just become a real thing and we're
no longer a twinkle in the eye of how stuff works,
we were actually making podcasts, we were able to use
a lot of stuff as references. You know, it hushed
up the audio in the show. You may have longtime
(25:01):
ridiculous historians. You heard us possibly do taking a law
and order sound cue for Casey on the Case one
of our first references, which we loved so much, and
in our business we were able to we were able
to describe some of this stuff as fair use, right,
(25:23):
educational value. But as podcasting became more and more of
an industry and became more and more mainstreamed, the suits
started to pay attention. You could no longer have nol
and Max and Ben do a rendition of you know,
bone Thugs and Harmony or something, just because we thought
it was funny or we thought it was cool to
(25:45):
throw to that because there's a copyright and sampling runs
into copyright issues all the time. Your favorite hip hop artists,
favorite hip hop songs or albums that have samples on them.
It's someone's entire to figure out how to make it
okay to put that on a track.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, they call it clearing samples and the opposite of
cleared samples or uncleared samples. And as we know, sometimes
folks will roll the dice or at least you know
more when it was maybe the wild West time, which
lasted a pretty good long time from the beginning of sampling,
like in the eighties to when folks started to realize
(26:25):
if they paid closer attention they could maybe make a
bug because this stuff started flying highly above the radar.
So yeah, there's you know, even with music licensing for podcasts.
To your point, Ben, there's a whole company that you
work with that we work with at iHeart to make
sure that everyone's getting compensated and the use of the
piece of music is agreed upon and that person has
(26:48):
to find the holders of the copyright for two what
they call sides of the of the piece of music.
There's the composition copyright and then there's the actual recording
right and you know, the composition is codified by you know,
literal music notes on a page. If you register a
copyright for a piece of music, you are submitting sheet music, right,
(27:13):
and you're getting you know, like Lennon McCartney, whatever it
might be. You know, however, you agree to divide up
your royalties, you know, for songwriting credits.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
The recording is different than that.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
It is literally the copyrighted audio recording of that thing,
you know, that specific version of that song. That's why
you can it's a little easier to do a cover
of a song because you only have to pay royalties
for the composition side, and then you've made a whole
new piece of music, you know, out of what would
(27:44):
have been the recording side.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
And this stuff can get complicated when you're in the
in the deep water, right when you're talking a lot
of mainstream music, because so many people have a part
to play in the creatorholders, yes, stakeholders, and it is
going to be more people than you expect. It is
incredibly rare for there to be a mainstream artist that
(28:09):
has written everything, performed everything, you know what I mean,
that has done everything by themselves. It's extraordinary, I would argue.
So now that we're in the world of litigation of copyright,
of law and order sampling, I think we can get
away with that one. Yeah. Right, So you have to
(28:34):
get permission, you have to pay these royalties or these fees.
And the copyright holders who first started taking notice of this,
they were aiming for folks like Public Enemy. Public Enemy
used a lot of samples, and at first, in the
early days of this, purchasing the rights to use a sample,
(28:56):
it wasn't very expensive. You're still paying money, but it
was like a new revenue stream for these copyright holders.
And as people realized this was as they realized they
had struck financial oil. Basically, the fees grew. Additional fees
were added, things called rollover rates, and they started saying, okay,
(29:20):
we will charge you not just a one time fee,
but we'll charge you based on how many units, how
many CDs you sold. Right, So now you're kind of
incentivizing the creators not to sell as much of their song,
which is weird. Well, you're basically getting points, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I mean, like that's what you would consider like when
you do a negotiation for like a film, like as
a high level actor, you negotiate for getting all I
want an executive producer credit and I want X number
of points you know, percentage points on the gross. So
at this point you're giving away, you know, to these
stakeholders a good bit of your profits.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah, exactly, they're eating your lunch, as the old school,
as the old school madmen of the world would say.
And look, everybody knows everybody on every side of the
table here. They know that in general, these artists aren't
sampling stuff to play it off as their own. Nobody
is hearing the Funky Drummer riff and thinking, oh, this
(30:23):
person made that up right. It's it is an homage.
It is a sample. But intentions aside. The reality is
from the copyright holder perspective, these folks are still making
money off of stolen work. We're bringing up Funky Drummer
again because Clyde Stubblefield, the original drummer there has, as
(30:46):
of twenty twenty three, still not received compensation for his
drumming or for how it's been sampled and it's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
But that's the thing, though, Ben, that's part of that
recording copyright. Right, Clyde stubble Field was paid as a
session musician. He doesn't have points on the back end.
He's a high copyright And that's the thing that's really interesting,
and it goes back to our whole conversation about collaboration
and about synthesis. You know, a band like James Brown band,
(31:17):
you know he's got these season funk kind of jazz players.
A lot of that stuff is improvised. It's not like
James Brown told note for note Clyde Stubblefield exactly what
to play on Funky Drummer. It's called Funky Drummer because
Clyde's doublefield is the funky drummer and is incredible. And
he was playing completely from the heart and from you know,
(31:39):
his intellect as a musical you know mind. This thing
that then caught so many ears. Wow, this is next level.
We're gonna loop this for days. And that's why it
is to this day, I think one of the most sampled,
you know, pieces of drumming, you know, in the history
of sampling. It's like the vill Helm scream of drum,
it's like the will Helm and that guy probably isn't
(32:01):
getting paid for that either. But my point is, no
one's exactly ripping off Clyde Stubblefield. He didn't make this,
isn't you know, But he didn't have the power to
make that, you know, to push for that at the time,
because he was a hired gun and only history has
proven him to have been this high water mark moment.
You know that he didn't even know he was creating
(32:21):
so and we see other examples of that as well,
like in a tribe called Quest samples take a Walk
on the wild Side by Lou Reed and you know
that iconico that slide base or whatever, that was a
session musician as well, who made that up and probably
was sort of given a guideline around what to play.
But he's the one who did that, and he's not
(32:43):
getting paid for that either. And in fact, I believe
that Lou Reed, in his infinite you know, crotchetiness sued,
you know, can you the tribe call Quest over?
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Can you kick it? Can we kick it?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
And I think he gets every bit of royalty for
that song. And do you think the guy who played
that bass slimee that they sampled gets a dime of that.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
No, No, I hope, I don't know. Things get sticky
right when money is involved. And another famous or infamous
example of copyright issues would be our Pow Danger Mouse.
In two thousand and four, Danger Mouse created something called
the Gray Album, which was a really well done mashup
(33:23):
end to end stem distern mashup no skips the White
album with jay Z jay Z's versus from the Black Album.
It was really cool. A lot of people liked it,
people who didn't like it. Em I the label that
owns the Beatles recordings, and they make a ton of
money off this, so of course they're protective of it.
They slapped him with they slapped Danger Mouse with a
(33:45):
C and D, a cease and desist order so he
couldn't release the album in a way that made him money.
But this is also the era of what's called peer
to peer networks, tarrantine, LimeWire, yeah, whatever help you know,
And this and that is where this record found its audience,
you know, I mean, and you would you would find
(34:07):
mislabeled versions of it all the time back you know,
in these days to kind of hide it from the
suits or whatever.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Because this was also in the days where you would
have divisions of companies like EMI kind of scraping these
torrent sites for pirated material, for stuff that was infringing
on their copyright. And then they could, I think, subpoena
your IP address from your Internet service provider and then
they would serve you, the user, with a cease and desist.
(34:36):
It was it was called something like the Web Sheriff.
It was some I'm guessing bought based thing, but there
had to be some human element too. And I remember
this was back in the day too of like you know,
people torrenting TV shows, you get them from HBO for example,
for torrenting like the Sopranos or whatever.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
But you can't stop it.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
You make one person take it down, fifteen other people
are gonna put it up. And that's how the gray
Out album really kind of found this audience. And this
is also right in the era of girl Talk. Like
you mentioned girl Talk, The night Ripper of that record
samples all kinds of stuff, and if I'm not mistaken,
none of that stuff is cleared. And while I don't
think you can get like a physical copy of that record,
(35:17):
it's you can stream it on YouTube all day and night.
You know it's hit in this way that was part
of a cultural explosion.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah, and shout out to Jane McGrath over at How
Stuff Works. Jane is an old friend of mine. Jane
wrote How Music Sampling Works, which is a great look
at some of the modern problems. Here. One thing that's
I think kind of controversial, at least to me, probably
to a lot of people. The folks who are suing
(35:46):
for damages in copyright cases around samples, Like you said older,
they're often not the people who created the thing being sampled.
They are companies that have acquired the rights to the music.
(36:07):
So now you're in a weird situation where someone made something,
they put it out in the world, and then a
company somehow acquired the ownership of that. They never made
the music, but they are suing other people who have
attempted to use or somehow profit from that. That's why
(36:30):
a lot of times you will see mixtapes released right
or something something sent beneath the radar where someone can
say I wasn't profiting off that, this is just a
mix for me and my friends.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Well, and that's the interesting thing too. Man and maybe
you have a little more clarity or max around this.
Is it only copyright infringement? Can they only go after
you if you're profiting from it? Like what if you
just put it out on like SoundCloud and stuff? Are
there people? Because technically, you know, even if something isn't
making you money directly, if it blows up, even if
(37:06):
people are getting it for free, that is money in
the bank in other ways.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Right yeah, requisite disclaimer, we're not lawyers, but it seems
to be the case that if someone's used in the
aren't paying you and you find out about it, then
you can sue for damages. And if they say I
didn't make any money, then they'll tell you what the
Sixth Circuit Court said to jay Z. They'll say, get
(37:32):
a license or don't sample stuff. Oh and this this
Bridgeport situation.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
One man company. That's what you might call like a
copyright troll or a patent troll. You know, someone who
goes and looks for things that maybe the copyright has
expired on and acquires them and then is able to
sue other artists for either sampling that material or perhaps
ripping off a melody you know, we know, like with
blurred lines for example, which wasn't a case of sampling
(38:01):
that was the Robin Thick song. It wasn't a case
of sample produced by Pharrell of the Neptunes, which maybe
mentioned also a hugely influential producer in this world. It
was so similar to a Marvin Gaye song. I believe
it was Marvin gay that there. That was a big issue,
and I think they ended up having to give a
(38:21):
portion of the royalties, you know, to that organized whatever,
you know, whoever governs Marvin Marvin Gay's estate copyright.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
GE's so weird, Like remember when John Fogerty got sued
for sounding too much like himself. That's insane.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I don't even fully I need maybe he need you
to explain that to the group, because I don't think
I fully understand.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah. So Fogerty, you know, the lead singer and guitar
player and songwriter of Creden's Clearwater Revival. He was sued
for self plagiarism because the label that controlled Creden's Clearwater
Revival said that a song he wrote later, not with
(39:02):
the label, called The Old Man Down the Road sounded
too much like a song Credence had made called Run
Through the jungle Wow.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yeah, And it makes sense that that also, you know,
it speaks to the complexity of having relationships with labels
and the idea of them owning your music. We're talking
about the artists now, not just other people trying to
sample that music, where you can literally no longer own
the creative work that you've made anymore, and to your point,
(39:32):
be sued for doing something even that's in the vein
of that. And we know that it's hard to you know,
copyright the sound of a voice. But I think there
was also a thing recently with a case of who's
the Rick roll guy Rick Astley? I think someone Rick
Astley sued somebody for doing like a sort of a
(39:56):
jokey cover of never Going to Give You Up because
he said it was like an impression and it sounded
too much like him. But I don't know if that
case is actually resolved yet, because that's an interesting one.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
The idea. You can you know, you can.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Copyright a line of lyric, Perhaps you can copyright a
combination of musical notes, you can copyright a recording, But
can you copyright like the sound of someone's voice.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, Another example outside of the world of music, just
audio and copyrights and trademarks and stuff. The guy from
wrestling who says let's get ready to rumble is notoriously litigious,
like to the point where apparently his team has shut down.
I haven't confirmed this, but I heard his team shut
(40:42):
down like a high school production. Oh yeah, I know
that is.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
And he's like got a monopoly on it for boxing,
and it's what I believe his brother does UFC also,
So it's just like this one family that controls all that.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
M yeah, you're right, boxing excuse me, not necessarily resting,
but this so people can get into these lawsuits accidentally. Right,
let's do one more sample. Can I just oh, can
I just double back really quickly? The case with Rick Astley,
by this is super relevant. Young Gravy was a rapper.
(41:16):
He got the rights to do an interpolation, in other words,
re recording the song never Gonna Give You Up. But
you did that in order to avoid having to pay,
you know, for the licensing of the actual sample. So
they recorded it.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
But the lawsuit alleges from Astley that was filed in
Los Angeles Court claimed that while they did secure the
rights to re record the melody and the lyrics, they
recorded it too close to the original and infringed on
their right of publicity by quote flagrantly impersonating Astley's voice.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Right. And then here's another example to show all this
is complex. This is the story of black Box. They
sample the vote of someone named Loletta Holloway and they
use this vocal in a song they may called Ride
on Time. It's very obvious that they're using this Holloway
(42:11):
sample from her song love Sensation, but they're creating a
stutter with it. They're stuttering the vocal hook and they
come out with a music video. The music video shows
a model who is miming along to this altered hook.
And even though black Box cleared the sample they had
(42:32):
a licensing agreement with the label, they got a legal
challenge from Holloway's lawyers because they didn't credit her vocal.
They got the rights to it, but they didn't put
her name in there. And so there are a lot
of variables. There are a lot of not love that's term,
but there are a lot of stakeholders. And the best
way to put it is air on the side of caution.
(42:55):
All the legal precedents aside which are still being made.
You could argue, if you publish music that takes somebody
else's work samples it without permission, you could theoretically face
a legal challenge, no matter how short the sample is,
no matter how obscure. Basically, I think the rule of
thumb is you're more likely to have lawyers at your
(43:19):
door if you're using a very recognizable sample, and if
you're making any significant amount of money. Well, and we've.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Talked a little bit about fair use, the idea of
fair use, and you know, there are certain factors like
parody you know, for or like you know, satire, I
guess is considered a factor of fair use that could
be protected. Another one is the idea of making using
the work in a way that is transformative, and that
(43:46):
refers to adding something new, to give it a kind
of a recontextualize, give it a different purpose, different character,
or do not substitute for the original use of the work.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
But here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
While fair use is defense, it still means you got
to go to court.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah. Also, also anybody associated with the legal world, any
attorney who is a ridiculous historian. When you hear people
who are not lawyers talking about fair use, I can
only imagine that your your chest titans and your stomach drops.
Because every time I've been talking about fair use with
any sort of legal department, aw it, they all love
(44:26):
it. It's not there. It's not their favorite string of words
in English. So a lot of producers do get away
with using unlicensed samples, right breakbeats, drum solos. There are
also tons and tons of tracks that get lost in
studio limbo. They never see the light of day. Fast
forward several decades. Someone comes in and they say, oh wow,
(44:48):
I really like this hook from this unreleased nineteen sixties thing, right,
And they may not even know if it's cutting room
floor stuff. They may not even know the original artist,
and they're just like, I like this song. Imagine if
it had a cool, you know, synth beat behind it. Now,
you see, for for a little while there were CDs
(45:10):
that were compilations of samples and you could just take
this and do with it what you will. However, that
was a pretty short lived halcyon era. Now we're talking
about sample libraries, and we use these in the world
of podcasting because we like it saves a lot of
time and a lot of heartache to go into some
(45:33):
kind of archive a collection of sound cues or honestly
sound alike music. A lot of people use that, right,
Uh did you see did you watch thirty Rock? Oh? Yeah,
thirty Rock had this great this great bit. It wasn't
the main part of an episode, but they had this
great bit where they ran into legal issues trying to
(45:53):
do a Joplin Yeah, Jedis Jorplin or Nick Jump jorb yeah,
whatever they call it. Yeah. And this they have this
hilarious depiction of the corporate side of this, wherein the
person playing the character they cannot call Jaddis Joplin sings
(46:14):
songs that have to be just different enough for them
not to get sued.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Well, And I think there was actually a real life
example of that where Andre three thousand, no maybe he
was gonna do I can't remember who ended up playing.
There's Jimmy Hendrix biopic that has no Jimmy Hendrix music
in it at all. And that's interesting, right, And Like,
I'm actually working on a podcast about the Rolling Stones
and about album Exile on Main Street and rather than
(46:39):
you know, we could clear all the music, but it
would be very expensive, and we're trying to tell a
story in audio form. So I was actually lucky enough
to work with a bunch of really great musicians and
make it. I wouldn't call it sound alike music because
it's not like this one is supposed to be a
one to one for jumping Jack flash. It's more just
vibey music in the you know, genre of the time,
(47:00):
and like record it in a way that gives it
that same feel, maybe similar instrumentation. But that's a lot
of the kind of stuff you'll find on these libraries.
And then you also will have sample libraries that are
really high fidelity recordings of saying orchestra doing like oh
stressful horror Q number three, right, and anyone can use
(47:22):
it because it's cleared for that use. And usually when
you sign up for one of these services there are
terms of the use, and if you're not careful, you
might notice that, oh, you can't actually use it in
this setting. So always be careful if you're using stuff
like that. And sometimes they're not cleared in perpetuity across
all creation, you.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Know, right, Yeah, you have to read the fine print
very carefully because the fine print is where the ugly
things can be hidden, especially consequences. So these sample libraries
are very very useful and efficacious because they have a license,
and the license may be restricted to certain usages. It
may have any number of constraints a time window, for instance,
(48:03):
or saying that this can be used, but it cannot
be used in the following ways. It just goes on.
When it comes to sampling music laws, you have to
know the lay of the land, and you have to
assume that it's possible you could accidentally cross some kind
of threshold trip a legal wire of some sort. And
(48:24):
the one of the issues that a lot of copy
left proponents have, if you're familiar with the copy left movement,
one of the issues they have regarding copyright protection is
that it increases the barriers for up and coming artists
in the world of music. It can make things incredibly difficult.
Like if you're a musician in the United States, at
(48:45):
least from what I understand, music is automatically copyrighted from
the get go. You have to when you when you
commit it to some medium, right you have to So
you have to always assume you need permission to use
someone else's work in your stuff, even if it's a
tiny thing, you know what I mean. I can't believe
we got through I think we've done this on purpose,
(49:07):
But I can't believe we got through uh a two
part episode and didn't mention the debacle of vanilla ice.
Of course, yeah, that's probably really familiar.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
But that whole clip of him defending that is part
and parcel of like not just not getting it right. So, no,
they left out a note. You know ours is is?
It repeats the note, and I think the it's under
pressure by Queen and David Bowie and this is baseline
and in the real one they just repeat that. They
(49:38):
don't do the pickup note and then the vanilla ice one.
I guess they added the note. I'm a little unclear.
It is the sample, right, Like, it's definitely a sample.
It's not just them copying that baseline and playing it differently,
is it.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Ah, it doesn't really matter for the purpose of this argument.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
But he on behind the music or whatever they was,
defends it by saying, no, no, see ours is different. Yeah,
ay has one extra note and that's just kind of
missing the point. But what ended up happening with that?
Did he have to give up a massive portion of
his royalties? I think so.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Actually he agreed to a private settlement. They stayed out
of court because he paid to have the rights to
under pressure, and then he credited both Bowie and Queen
on I Sized Baby, so the songwriting credit still goes
to them. That you know, that's a all's well, that
(50:30):
ends well sort of thing, and not all of these
things end well. But be on the side of the air,
on the side of caution as as a creator, as
a musician, because even with the best of intentions right,
even if you're most people doing this aren't out for
a cash grab. When you're making music, you're just inspired
by something you want to share and communicate that inspiration
(50:54):
tis a noble thing, but you gotta be careful. Unlike
music licensing, to do a cover right and sell a cover,
you don't have to have a sampling license. This means
that the holder of the copyright doesn't have any obligation
to grant you permission. The original rights holder can basically
(51:18):
create their own playing field. They can decide the terms
for clearing a sample. They can say no.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Case in point to the settlement out of court with
Bowie and Queen, they obviously were good sports about it
relatively or that also was a little earlier on right
and before maybe their lawyers would have been like, nah,
we want to get points on this for like ever
in all time. Apparently e ice Baby generates about half
a million dollars a year, you know, in royalties.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
There are certain examples where artists who have been sampled
and hasn't been cleared have pushed to the point of
now they get every bit of that you know money.
Ye like with the case of Walk on the wild
Side by Lou Reed and a tribe called Quest.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
How about this one Old Crow Medicine show how they
broke out with wagon Wheel that skyrocketed them to national
and global acclaim. Now, of course, these guys Old Crow,
they are a bunch of very talented musicians. They've had
a lot of past members, but they're they're all really good. No,
Trump's in the squad. Wagon Wheel is based on an
(52:30):
unfinished Bob Dylan song, and they had to go back
and work with Bob Dylan's team to make sure everything
was right and not to sound too mafioso about it,
to make sure everyone was made whole. Oh yeah, exactly now.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
And then that's you know, and that's not sampling, that's
a cover or an interpolation. If you will because they
kind of took it in a different direction because it
was not a completed song. So it's hard to cover
something that hasn't been fully you know. But as y'all
can see, I mean, this whole world just has so
many interesting ins and outs and we're not at the
(53:06):
end of it by a long shot. Because now, if anything,
the playing field is wide open, and that we have
this wealth of records, you know, that you can get
at thrift stores for no money, and interesting up andcoming artists,
things like vapor Wave where people are sampling, like you know,
literally there's a whole I just got this record from
Poland by this artist called Macintosh. Plus I got it
from Poland because it's a bootleg. You can't get this
(53:29):
album in any sanctioned form because it's just full of
uncleared samples, like you know, half speed kind of lounge
music and you know, weird old like radio commercials and
like that's the vapor wave things. So there are whole
new musical cultures around uncleared samples. But it's all taken
to the internet. Oh you know, yeah, it very much is.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
And here is where I think we we wrap our
series for today, by which I mean we're both about
to freestyle. I'm kiddet, we are going to We're gonna
call it a day. This is such, This is such
a journey, and it's one that continues, and we wanted
to explore the origin of what we call sampling and
(54:12):
music all the way to the modern day. Sampling will continue.
Legislation is always outpaced by technology, and somewhere right now,
as we record, there is a mad genius in a
studio or maybe in their garage building the next breakthrough
in the world of sampling, and I, for one can't
(54:34):
wait to hear it.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
No, I can't either, And like you know, I am
I'm not saying I am said mad genius or anything,
but basically all the records that I have down in
my studio are weird thrift store fines of like drum
you know, drum circles and children's records with weird little
melodies and stuff from the sixties. It's like political spoken
word things or you know, congo bands or whatever. You know,
(54:58):
a lot of weird cre ristian records that were made
probably in very limited runs by churches. They end up
in these thrift stores around the South here. But to
your point, Ben I love sampling this stuff for fun.
I would be very careful if I was going to
release it, because even if I think no one's even
maybe alive associated with this weird religious record you know
from the sixties, but who knows, maybe someone is and
(55:20):
if the song became a hit, all of a sudden
that person takes notice. The fact that they committed that
thing to vinyl in the sixties is proof that they
own the copyright.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Yeah, so be careful out there, folks. We can't wait
to hear the next generation of sampling, the next generation
of music concrete, big, big thanks to super producer mister
Max Williams. Huge thanks to research associate Jeff Bartlett, who
really whit hard in the paint on this one. And
(55:51):
thanks to let's see who would be the most likely
to sue us for copyright in frenchman Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
M Yeah, well I'm not. I ain't scared. Let's in
a fringe away on mister Strickland man. This is a
fantastic conversation, Ben, and thanks Max for always being with
us as our super producer, you know, on the ones
and twos, as Ben would say, and now we know
where that actually we didn't really explain the one on
(56:17):
the one being the left turn table, two being the
right turn table.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
There you go, There you go, folks, We'll see you
next time.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Histories, the production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
(00:27):
show Ridiculous Historians. Let's give it up for the man,
the myth legend super producer, mister Max Williams. Sunday Sunday Sunday.
We're fresh off Monster Jam. This week we're talking all
about the history of sampling, which, as my good pal
Nol pointed out, is very near and dear to the
(00:48):
three of us. They called me ben Noel. This is
a part two, so I guess we should tell people
or ask people to sample part one first.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Huh, Yes, exactly, put it on your little sampler platter,
skewer it with a with a tiny toothpick.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Enjoy it's it's delicious flavor. Yes, so let's let's cut.
Let's cut straight to hip hop. Sampling has become inherently
associated with the world of hip hop, the world of dance.
It starts even before hip hop was called hip hop.
(01:23):
It it really starts in the seventies, but the affordability
of these sampling machines in the eighties becomes the and
I rarely use this phrase because I hate when corporate
types do it. It becomes the inflection point. It is
the inflection point. Indeed. Uh, but we're talking about folks.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
This is this is even separate from folks who are
able to all of a sudden afford those samplers that
we're talking about, the NPCs and sp twelve hundreds of
the world, right that might still have only been you know,
affordable as a relative term. No, it wasn't the price
of a fair light or a frickin melotron. But these
things we were still not, you know, affordable to just anybody.
(02:02):
But what was available to just about anybody was a turntable. Yes,
it was a household item right.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Right, because a lot of people have record players, because
people like music. So your parents, did you know what
I mean? Yea, yeah. So I want to shout out
this really cool thing on Drunk History, which obviously is
a show that we love. On this show, there is
an interview or a story narrated by Questlove of the
(02:32):
Roots and it's all about the invention of the scratch.
Please do watch that. It's just a wonderful segment. The
history spot on Questlove is a walking encyclopedia of all
things hip hop. We'll talk about what you're what you've
set up so beautifully for US records. There's a DJ,
cool Herk. Cool Herk knows how to read a room,
(02:56):
knows how to move a crowd. Cool Herk has one problem.
He doesn't want the party to stop. So he says,
I've got to figure out how to extend drum beats right,
Uh in these records that I'm playing. Yeah. Functional, So
he gets two records together, uh and the same months,
and this the Merry Ground it's called Yeah, they're the same,
(03:17):
they're identical records, and he mixes them together to make
the drum breaks longer. And this is where we see
the emergence of or one of the ingredients what you
would call an MC today. MCS for the master's ceremony, right,
like like in dance hall when people would make toast right,
or there's a little bit of the old Grio storytelling
(03:38):
involved there. This Yeah, this MC will come up and
they're the hype person at the party. They're not the
main event, the DJs the main event. They're the person
who is like, oh right, everybody, you could have been
anywhere tonight, but you're here. You know, we got DJ
Coole hurt Uh. And there's this these intros because more
(04:00):
ornates more elaborate, right, They become their own sort of instruments,
and this is ultimately evolves into what you would call rapping.
And producers love this, they love these block parties. But
it's like an ice sculpture, you know what I mean.
It's beautiful in the moment. How do we capture this,
(04:22):
how do we bring it out past? You know, for
you when the cops shut us down, they start making
these songs.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
It's really interesting that you point out the relationship between
the MC and the DJ, because I think this is
you know, if this is early seventies, this would have
been happening kind of in parallel with disco. They would
have been more in like, you know, more affluent neighborhoods,
you know, and maybe like midtown, downtown New York, LA.
You know, all of this kind of stuff. And these
(04:53):
these parties that you're talking about were happening in the street,
like these were these were block parties, These were you know,
outdoor kind of very affairs. So there was this kind
of parallel track. But all what it had in common
was the star of the show was recorded music. Yes,
it was sort of this era of like live music
was almost.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Waning a little bit not waning.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I mean, of course there were big you know, rock
shows and stadium shows, but you would go to those
to see your favorite artists.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
You're going to these things to dance. So going back
to this, the idea of hip hop sampling again, it
reminds me of this. It's just wonderful quote I heard
from a vegan Japanese chef who said that she found
her creativity in constraints, right, and she said, actually makes
(05:40):
me a much better chef because I have I have
restricted sort of the palette with which I can paint.
And hip hop sampling comes from these limitations. Like you
said earlier, you know you are forced in by necessity, right,
you were forced into creativity because you can't afford a
(06:03):
formal music education.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
You may not be able to pay the per hour
rate for studio time. How you want to have a
harp on your song, But do you know anyone who
plays a harp? Do you know anyone who can afford
a harp? Honestly, I don't know anyone who can play
a harp. In twenty twenty three, I've met some people,
but I don't have like a harp. Guy, I can text.
I got a harp guy. Actually, it's just funny, man Like, just.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Having a recording studio and working on different stuff, you
end up finding people that play all kinds of different weirds.
I'm not I just happen to know who plays the
harp and dude, that's the thing though, to your point, Ben,
that is such a niche specific discipline and to even
own a harp, that is such a commitment. That is
(06:50):
such a commitment to the one thing. Right with turntables,
you could commit to everything because you can. You just
buy the record and then you can like, you know,
here's a little bit of this little bit of that
mix it up.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
You don't have to have a heart.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
We don't even have no sax player or even a
drummer because that method that you were talking about that
DJ cool Hirk was doing to extend those beats. You
just buy two copies of the same record, and then
you can use what's called a mixer and a cross
fader to juggle back and forth. When the break ends
on the left side, left player, you turn it over
started on the right side, and then you pick the
(07:24):
needle back up put it on the beginning of the
break again on the left side. When the right side's done,
boom over to the right. You can make it completely seamless.
And if you ever, I know you have been witnessed
a DJ at the top of their game doing these
kinds of manipulations.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
It is like magic. It's so incredible to behold. It's
pretty cool. And there's a whole that we could do
a whole episode on DJ because there are you know,
as with any art form, there are controversies, right, there
are different schools of thought. We should also shout out
a producer, Marley Marril. This guy chopped up drum kind
(08:00):
of like a music concrete thing, chopped up drum breaks
to make new drum patterns, like you were saying, finding
new repetitions and cyclical intervals in this stuff. And then
we know that DJs, to your point, the DJs from
particularly the South Bronx were manipulating vinyl, right, they were
(08:21):
sampling this stuff, but they were cooking live and I
think that's really that's part of the art of DJing.
And again, can't cannot emphasize I'm not a fan of
over hyping stuff, so I don't say it lightly ridiculous historians.
I cannot emphasize how cool. That quest love story from
Drunk History is you really should watch it. If you
don't like it, then I don't know what to tell you.
(08:43):
You might hate music.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It's possible, but we still didn't exactly. This stuff wasn't
mainstream yet. Now it was all happening in these blog parties,
you know, because like I said, disco was mainstream, but
they weren't sampling. Those records were made with live bands,
those records, the recordings were made in the studios with
five stands. Very expensive, right, and they sounded expensive, you know.
(09:08):
But this stuff, this phenomenon was kind of happening under
the radar, and they didn't really have kind of a
flagship singular sound associated with them.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yet.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That would change with the advent of the Sugar Hill
Gang's rappers Delight, which you know, used some of these
kinds of grooves and sounds and turntably, you know, manipulations
and created a song that became really popular. That song
and of itself is an episode because it actually there
is an episode about that song on a show that
(09:41):
I worked on called The Speed of Sound with Steve Greenberg,
who kind of came up as a record executive through
all these times that we're talking about, and the Sugar
Hill Gang were kind of they weren't really very beloved
in the up and coming hip hop community because it
was kind of considered a little cliche, and and they
were backed by like the Mob.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
It's really interesting. So check that story out in and
of itself.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
But now you kind of have these songs starting to
really break through, you know, on the airwaves.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, yeah, you really do see it like this. This
gets the attention of the industry eventually, right, the powers
that be in the world of music, the folks who
own those studios, those elaborate, high end studios where mainstream
music is produced, they start getting interested in this thing.
(10:36):
And look, we also hip hop is awesome. All three
of us think hip hop is awesome, and we are
very careful to note that hip hop is not the
only thing happening in this realm. If you go across
the pond, you see folks like Pop Will Eat Itself,
Cold Cut, the Art of Noise. These are sample These
(11:00):
are rock, pop and dance music samples that they're using.
And it might not sound like hip hop, but it
has some of the same branches of the family tree
or roots. That's how trees grow, trees grow from roots.
So yeah, Noel, you know I'm leaning on a lot
of your knowledge as a multi instrumentalist. I never missed
(11:25):
the chance to brag about your talents there. Yeah, well,
thank you. You know you're really good. So I wanted
to ask you, when we're talking about sampling in the
world of British music in the late eighties and early nineties,
is this something that a lot of people in the
(11:46):
US would recognize stuff like popoly to itself and so on.
It depends.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I mean, you know, the Art of Noise are a
very influential kind of sample based group that could be
considered sort of a proto industrial kind of group. So
this is the kind of sampling where we're not necessarily
talking about recognizable samples through other pieces of music. We're
talking more about that sampling as an instrument unto itself.
(12:12):
If you think about you know, Nine Inch Nails, for example,
Pretty Hate Machines, the record that came out in the
late eighties, the sampling on that album is mainly like
the sounds of machinery and like you know, grinding gears
and you know, weird textural kind of bits. So it's
a way of using sampling or you know, manipulation of
(12:34):
recorded material to add texture, to add vibe, you know,
and it's not necessarily like to extend a drum break
or to have some sort of loop that someone might
recognize as sort of like a nod or an easter egg,
like you said. And this is all in the UK
where this stuff is blowing up. Pop will eat itself
cold cut the art of noise. You know, as we know,
(12:57):
the charts in the UK do not always the charts
in the United States. There's a lot more kind of
maybe off the beaten path sort of more unusual music
that does chart very well in the UK in terms
of dance music, in terms of like indie music, things
like that that we maybe wouldn't It's a little different
(13:17):
now being such a global world with the Internet and all.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
But back in the eighties, before you had this kind
of stuff, you wouldn't have even known about a lot
of these artists because unless you like, you know, were
really tuned into what was going on there via like zines,
which are you know, d DIY kind of printed music
magazines or pop culture magazines. So but now you know,
we live in this totally kind of global, less isolated,
(13:44):
but also somehow more isolated world where you kind of
know about what's going on depending on where your interests lie,
you know, outside of the country that you might live in. Yeah, exactly.
This is a great paradox of our age, you know,
and we're the average ridge music listeners always cognizant of
(14:04):
where a sample came from the providence or whatever.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Probably not, and you don't need to be to enjoy
the music itself. We do know that as technology continued
to develop, as these inventions, this musical equipment and gear
became miniaturized, became more sophisticated and more user friendly. We go.
It spread all around the world, and people were able
(14:30):
to get increasingly precise with the samples they took. You
might not have to just sample the entirety of the
entirety of a song, right, take all the two to
four bars of a loop. You could take individual parts
from various songs. You can pick and choose. Now I
just want you know, Now, I just want the sousaphone
(14:52):
from here. Now I just want this one part of
this vocal, and I want at a cappella. You can
start doing that. And one great example of this and
how it comes full circle is a nineteen ninety five
single from Lord Finesse called Hip to the Game, wherein
he samples some vocals, some ad libs really from James
(15:14):
Brown of Augusta Fame, some drums from band called Detroit Emeralds,
and then some harmonies and some melodies from Oscar Peterson
and then some additional percussion from Millie and Silly. It
puts all this together and synthesizes something new. And now
you know, we can also talk about I think something
(15:35):
that you and I and our pal Jeff all love
the band The Avalanches.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Oh my god, yeah, it was only a matter of
time The Avalanches since I left you. In addition to
DJ Shadows introducing are two album that really took the
art of sampling in a completely different direction. Because again,
while there might be little snippets within these that you
might recognize, kind of like if you were real jazz
(16:10):
head back in the day and you knew that little
little blip that the saxophonist was referencing, you know, from
another performer, these guys DJ Shadow and The Avalanches are
what you call create diggers. These are folks that find
stuff from yesteryear. You know, very esoteric records that would
(16:30):
not have been very popular, and they slice and dice
them to create something entirely new, you know. Not to
mention you mentioned the idea of having a cappella vocals.
When sampling became kind of the order of the day,
you would have forty five single versions of dance tracks
that would have an instrumental version on the B side,
(16:53):
or maybe an a cappella version on the B side.
Because anyone that knows about manipulating music, you know, if
you have a recording that is vocals and everything in there,
short of finding a section of it that doesn't have
the vocals, everything's locked together. You can't separate it. You
could use some equalization and maybe cut some of the
low frequencies and maybe emphasize the vocal, but you're not
(17:15):
going to have a purely music free version unless an
artist decides to release a a cappella version, and they
would only do that with the knowledge that a DJ
might use that and drop it on top of another break.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And I gotta tell you that to me shows the
collaborative nature here because think about it, you are a musician,
You're creating stuff. This still happens with a lot of
hip hop, a single comes out and you'll have the
version that has the verses on it, the vocals, and
then you'll have that instrumental version. Because this is true,
(17:54):
it's meant for other up and coming and sees and
producers to be able to digest that music, to make
it their own in some way, and it spreads your
original song as well. It can be when it works,
it can be a win win, and you can make
new music entirely from samples.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, And like like I said, there are those two
records that we're talking about since I left you and
introducing those records are made almost entirely out of snippets
of samples. But unless you were coming to it with
a deep knowledge of you know, the source material, which
is I mean we're talking hundreds and hundreds of samples.
(18:37):
This is not music made to feel necessarily referential to
a specific song. It's more using this stuff to create
kind of a nostalgic pastiche that just sort of is
meant to be sort of bathed in, you know, it's
a sonic tapestry as opposed to like here's the you know,
(18:57):
the eight bar drum break from Funky drummer, you know,
by James Brown and if you if you happen to
pick out little bits, that's part of the fun too.
Of course, there are whole websites like WhoSampled dot com.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
I'm actually on.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
It's phenomenal where it'll actually go through and dissect the
best of.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Whom at whatever internet.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
You know, music sleuth stability, exactly what was used, and
this stuff will be combined with synthesizers and you know,
drum machine sounds. But typically you know these artists like
DJ Shadow is a DJ, like he is a turntablist,
and you will hear scratchy kind of you know, sounds
like turntable manipulation, the avalanches they use you know, records
(19:39):
and they are DJs, but they're not like super you know,
proficiently scratchy, you know DJ turntableists. They're much more producers.
So you start to get into like the sampling as paint,
you know, the sampling as color, right.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, And also I like to from a creative perspective,
I like to think of it as building a band
in your head. You know, like these like Wallace Collection,
who got sampled by Skinny on a beautiful day you guys,
remember that song. That's that's a beautiful example. They they
had no idea what would happened to the music they
(20:17):
created when they were making it, and then Skinny comes
along and says, hey, I wish this stuff all worked together.
I think that's pretty cool, and I think it's going
to continue despite the controversies we're going to talk about.
I think it's going to continue because the technology continues
(20:37):
to evolve as well, and tracks are merging seamlessly together.
Like when it's It's almost like the idea that Chekhov
has about being a good author. The author disappears right.
The samples no longer sound like samples, and a lot
of these things they just sound as though they are
(20:58):
part of one amazingly created, eclectic, cohesive song, and anyone
to our earlier point in Part one about democratization of
technology and creativity, anyone with a digital audio workstation can
edit and manipulate samples in their own songs today. In
my opinion, one great example of sampling from our days
(21:23):
in the trenches of podcasting is a little top secret
project that we used to call the anti podcast This.
I think the statute of limitations has passed, but good
friend of the show, Tristan McNeil, and several of several
of our producers in the family did this beautiful thing
(21:46):
where they started taking out takes and bloopers from some
of your favorite podcasters and making them into tracks. And
Max were you involved with this?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
I was non involved with that. That was a little
before my time at the company. But I have made
one of the two of y'all on a recording of
stuff that I want you to know. When y'all use
the term that I had coin called girking, Yes, I've
made the Girking that has not been released to the public.
I don't think it is safe to release to the public.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I don't think.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I don't think iHeart would love that out in you
know the world.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
But yes, might be our might be for our Criterion
collection right when when, Yeah, when Criteria moves into podcasting.
So this is where we're at now. We're now going
closer to the present day. It's not just for hip hop.
You will hear this in electronic music, of course, like
(22:40):
some of your favorite house, jungle, drum and based stuff
also utilizes sampling to great effect. And we can still
see that evolution happening in real time, the old school
hip hop producers inspired people like Ya, inspired people like
Timbaland and the Neptunes, all of whom have made wonderful tracks.
(23:05):
Putting personalities aside, They've all made wonderful tracks at one
point or another. And this sampling kind of it plays
a big part in defining the era of hip hop
at a given at a given time, right, and now
it's even now it's even becoming I would say the
interval between an original song and a sample is continuing
(23:26):
to shrink. Like in hip hop, it's not uncommon for
someone to say, like jay Z's ninety nine Problems right,
produced with Rick Rubin. I believe jay Z's ninety nine
Problems didn't come out all that long ago in the
span of history. But now it's not uncommon to hear
songs coming out today where an MC verbally checks it
(23:49):
and they talk about their ninety nine problems.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Right, or the hundredth problem, or it might be because yeah,
And that's where the line between sampling and kind of
interpolation because very interesting because it's all, you know, in
a sense, a way of kind of check name checking
or sound checking pop culture, you know, and then kind
of tying your thing into a history, you know, and
(24:13):
being part of this whole conversation, because I mean, music,
at the end of the day, is just another oral tradition, right.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
One hundred percent, which is why we shout out grio's
when we talked about the early days of MC's. So
this is something you have probably run into if you
have ever worked in the field of audio, not even music. Okay,
give you another little war story. Way back in the day,
(24:41):
when podcasts had just become a real thing and we're
no longer a twinkle in the eye of how stuff works,
we were actually making podcasts, we were able to use
a lot of stuff as references. You know, it hushed
up the audio in the show. You may have longtime
(25:01):
ridiculous historians. You heard us possibly do taking a law
and order sound cue for Casey on the Case one
of our first references, which we loved so much, and
in our business we were able to we were able
to describe some of this stuff as fair use, right,
(25:23):
educational value. But as podcasting became more and more of
an industry and became more and more mainstreamed, the suits
started to pay attention. You could no longer have nol
and Max and Ben do a rendition of you know,
bone Thugs and Harmony or something, just because we thought
it was funny or we thought it was cool to
(25:45):
throw to that because there's a copyright and sampling runs
into copyright issues all the time. Your favorite hip hop artists,
favorite hip hop songs or albums that have samples on them.
It's someone's entire to figure out how to make it
okay to put that on a track.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, they call it clearing samples and the opposite of
cleared samples or uncleared samples. And as we know, sometimes
folks will roll the dice or at least you know
more when it was maybe the wild West time, which
lasted a pretty good long time from the beginning of sampling,
like in the eighties to when folks started to realize
(26:25):
if they paid closer attention they could maybe make a
bug because this stuff started flying highly above the radar.
So yeah, there's you know, even with music licensing for podcasts.
To your point, Ben, there's a whole company that you
work with that we work with at iHeart to make
sure that everyone's getting compensated and the use of the
piece of music is agreed upon and that person has
(26:48):
to find the holders of the copyright for two what
they call sides of the of the piece of music.
There's the composition copyright and then there's the actual recording
right and you know, the composition is codified by you know,
literal music notes on a page. If you register a
copyright for a piece of music, you are submitting sheet music, right,
(27:13):
and you're getting you know, like Lennon McCartney, whatever it
might be. You know, however, you agree to divide up
your royalties, you know, for songwriting credits.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
The recording is different than that.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
It is literally the copyrighted audio recording of that thing,
you know, that specific version of that song. That's why
you can it's a little easier to do a cover
of a song because you only have to pay royalties
for the composition side, and then you've made a whole
new piece of music, you know, out of what would
(27:44):
have been the recording side.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
And this stuff can get complicated when you're in the
in the deep water, right when you're talking a lot
of mainstream music, because so many people have a part
to play in the creatorholders, yes, stakeholders, and it is
going to be more people than you expect. It is
incredibly rare for there to be a mainstream artist that
(28:09):
has written everything, performed everything, you know what I mean,
that has done everything by themselves. It's extraordinary, I would argue.
So now that we're in the world of litigation of copyright,
of law and order sampling, I think we can get
away with that one. Yeah. Right, So you have to
(28:34):
get permission, you have to pay these royalties or these fees.
And the copyright holders who first started taking notice of this,
they were aiming for folks like Public Enemy. Public Enemy
used a lot of samples, and at first, in the
early days of this, purchasing the rights to use a sample,
(28:56):
it wasn't very expensive. You're still paying money, but it
was like a new revenue stream for these copyright holders.
And as people realized this was as they realized they
had struck financial oil. Basically, the fees grew. Additional fees
were added, things called rollover rates, and they started saying, okay,
(29:20):
we will charge you not just a one time fee,
but we'll charge you based on how many units, how
many CDs you sold. Right, So now you're kind of
incentivizing the creators not to sell as much of their song,
which is weird. Well, you're basically getting points, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I mean, like that's what you would consider like when
you do a negotiation for like a film, like as
a high level actor, you negotiate for getting all I
want an executive producer credit and I want X number
of points you know, percentage points on the gross. So
at this point you're giving away, you know, to these
stakeholders a good bit of your profits.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah, exactly, they're eating your lunch, as the old school,
as the old school madmen of the world would say.
And look, everybody knows everybody on every side of the
table here. They know that in general, these artists aren't
sampling stuff to play it off as their own. Nobody
is hearing the Funky Drummer riff and thinking, oh, this
(30:23):
person made that up right. It's it is an homage.
It is a sample. But intentions aside. The reality is
from the copyright holder perspective, these folks are still making
money off of stolen work. We're bringing up Funky Drummer
again because Clyde Stubblefield, the original drummer there has, as
(30:46):
of twenty twenty three, still not received compensation for his
drumming or for how it's been sampled and it's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
But that's the thing, though, Ben, that's part of that
recording copyright. Right, Clyde stubble Field was paid as a
session musician. He doesn't have points on the back end.
He's a high copyright And that's the thing that's really interesting,
and it goes back to our whole conversation about collaboration
and about synthesis. You know, a band like James Brown band,
(31:17):
you know he's got these season funk kind of jazz players.
A lot of that stuff is improvised. It's not like
James Brown told note for note Clyde Stubblefield exactly what
to play on Funky Drummer. It's called Funky Drummer because
Clyde's doublefield is the funky drummer and is incredible. And
he was playing completely from the heart and from you know,
(31:39):
his intellect as a musical you know mind. This thing
that then caught so many ears. Wow, this is next level.
We're gonna loop this for days. And that's why it
is to this day, I think one of the most sampled,
you know, pieces of drumming, you know, in the history
of sampling. It's like the vill Helm scream of drum,
it's like the will Helm and that guy probably isn't
(32:01):
getting paid for that either. But my point is, no
one's exactly ripping off Clyde Stubblefield. He didn't make this,
isn't you know, But he didn't have the power to
make that, you know, to push for that at the time,
because he was a hired gun and only history has
proven him to have been this high water mark moment.
You know that he didn't even know he was creating
(32:21):
so and we see other examples of that as well,
like in a tribe called Quest samples take a Walk
on the wild Side by Lou Reed and you know
that iconico that slide base or whatever, that was a
session musician as well, who made that up and probably
was sort of given a guideline around what to play.
But he's the one who did that, and he's not
(32:43):
getting paid for that either. And in fact, I believe
that Lou Reed, in his infinite you know, crotchetiness sued,
you know, can you the tribe call Quest over?
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Can you kick it? Can we kick it?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
And I think he gets every bit of royalty for
that song. And do you think the guy who played
that bass slimee that they sampled gets a dime of that.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
No, No, I hope, I don't know. Things get sticky
right when money is involved. And another famous or infamous
example of copyright issues would be our Pow Danger Mouse.
In two thousand and four, Danger Mouse created something called
the Gray Album, which was a really well done mashup
(33:23):
end to end stem distern mashup no skips the White
album with jay Z jay Z's versus from the Black Album.
It was really cool. A lot of people liked it,
people who didn't like it. Em I the label that
owns the Beatles recordings, and they make a ton of
money off this, so of course they're protective of it.
They slapped him with they slapped Danger Mouse with a
(33:45):
C and D, a cease and desist order so he
couldn't release the album in a way that made him money.
But this is also the era of what's called peer
to peer networks, tarrantine, LimeWire, yeah, whatever help you know,
And this and that is where this record found its audience,
you know, I mean, and you would you would find
(34:07):
mislabeled versions of it all the time back you know,
in these days to kind of hide it from the
suits or whatever.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Because this was also in the days where you would
have divisions of companies like EMI kind of scraping these
torrent sites for pirated material, for stuff that was infringing
on their copyright. And then they could, I think, subpoena
your IP address from your Internet service provider and then
they would serve you, the user, with a cease and desist.
(34:36):
It was it was called something like the Web Sheriff.
It was some I'm guessing bought based thing, but there
had to be some human element too. And I remember
this was back in the day too of like you know,
people torrenting TV shows, you get them from HBO for example,
for torrenting like the Sopranos or whatever.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
But you can't stop it.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
You make one person take it down, fifteen other people
are gonna put it up. And that's how the gray
Out album really kind of found this audience. And this
is also right in the era of girl Talk. Like
you mentioned girl Talk, The night Ripper of that record
samples all kinds of stuff, and if I'm not mistaken,
none of that stuff is cleared. And while I don't
think you can get like a physical copy of that record,
(35:17):
it's you can stream it on YouTube all day and night.
You know it's hit in this way that was part
of a cultural explosion.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah, and shout out to Jane McGrath over at How
Stuff Works. Jane is an old friend of mine. Jane
wrote How Music Sampling Works, which is a great look
at some of the modern problems. Here. One thing that's
I think kind of controversial, at least to me, probably
to a lot of people. The folks who are suing
(35:46):
for damages in copyright cases around samples, Like you said older,
they're often not the people who created the thing being sampled.
They are companies that have acquired the rights to the music.
(36:07):
So now you're in a weird situation where someone made something,
they put it out in the world, and then a
company somehow acquired the ownership of that. They never made
the music, but they are suing other people who have
attempted to use or somehow profit from that. That's why
(36:30):
a lot of times you will see mixtapes released right
or something something sent beneath the radar where someone can
say I wasn't profiting off that, this is just a
mix for me and my friends.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Well, and that's the interesting thing too. Man and maybe
you have a little more clarity or max around this.
Is it only copyright infringement? Can they only go after
you if you're profiting from it? Like what if you
just put it out on like SoundCloud and stuff? Are
there people? Because technically, you know, even if something isn't
making you money directly, if it blows up, even if
(37:06):
people are getting it for free, that is money in
the bank in other ways.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Right yeah, requisite disclaimer, we're not lawyers, but it seems
to be the case that if someone's used in the
aren't paying you and you find out about it, then
you can sue for damages. And if they say I
didn't make any money, then they'll tell you what the
Sixth Circuit Court said to jay Z. They'll say, get
(37:32):
a license or don't sample stuff. Oh and this this
Bridgeport situation.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
One man company. That's what you might call like a
copyright troll or a patent troll. You know, someone who
goes and looks for things that maybe the copyright has
expired on and acquires them and then is able to
sue other artists for either sampling that material or perhaps
ripping off a melody you know, we know, like with
blurred lines for example, which wasn't a case of sampling
(38:01):
that was the Robin Thick song. It wasn't a case
of sample produced by Pharrell of the Neptunes, which maybe
mentioned also a hugely influential producer in this world. It
was so similar to a Marvin Gaye song. I believe
it was Marvin gay that there. That was a big issue,
and I think they ended up having to give a
(38:21):
portion of the royalties, you know, to that organized whatever,
you know, whoever governs Marvin Marvin Gay's estate copyright.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
GE's so weird, Like remember when John Fogerty got sued
for sounding too much like himself. That's insane.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I don't even fully I need maybe he need you
to explain that to the group, because I don't think
I fully understand.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah. So Fogerty, you know, the lead singer and guitar
player and songwriter of Creden's Clearwater Revival. He was sued
for self plagiarism because the label that controlled Creden's Clearwater
Revival said that a song he wrote later, not with
(39:02):
the label, called The Old Man Down the Road sounded
too much like a song Credence had made called Run
Through the jungle Wow.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yeah, And it makes sense that that also, you know,
it speaks to the complexity of having relationships with labels
and the idea of them owning your music. We're talking
about the artists now, not just other people trying to
sample that music, where you can literally no longer own
the creative work that you've made anymore, and to your point,
(39:32):
be sued for doing something even that's in the vein
of that. And we know that it's hard to you know,
copyright the sound of a voice. But I think there
was also a thing recently with a case of who's
the Rick roll guy Rick Astley? I think someone Rick
Astley sued somebody for doing like a sort of a
(39:56):
jokey cover of never Going to Give You Up because
he said it was like an impression and it sounded
too much like him. But I don't know if that
case is actually resolved yet, because that's an interesting one.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
The idea. You can you know, you can.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Copyright a line of lyric, Perhaps you can copyright a
combination of musical notes, you can copyright a recording, But
can you copyright like the sound of someone's voice.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, Another example outside of the world of music, just
audio and copyrights and trademarks and stuff. The guy from
wrestling who says let's get ready to rumble is notoriously litigious,
like to the point where apparently his team has shut down.
I haven't confirmed this, but I heard his team shut
(40:42):
down like a high school production. Oh yeah, I know
that is.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
And he's like got a monopoly on it for boxing,
and it's what I believe his brother does UFC also,
So it's just like this one family that controls all that.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
M yeah, you're right, boxing excuse me, not necessarily resting,
but this so people can get into these lawsuits accidentally. Right,
let's do one more sample. Can I just oh, can
I just double back really quickly? The case with Rick Astley,
by this is super relevant. Young Gravy was a rapper.
(41:16):
He got the rights to do an interpolation, in other words,
re recording the song never Gonna Give You Up. But
you did that in order to avoid having to pay,
you know, for the licensing of the actual sample. So
they recorded it.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
But the lawsuit alleges from Astley that was filed in
Los Angeles Court claimed that while they did secure the
rights to re record the melody and the lyrics, they
recorded it too close to the original and infringed on
their right of publicity by quote flagrantly impersonating Astley's voice.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Right. And then here's another example to show all this
is complex. This is the story of black Box. They
sample the vote of someone named Loletta Holloway and they
use this vocal in a song they may called Ride
on Time. It's very obvious that they're using this Holloway
(42:11):
sample from her song love Sensation, but they're creating a
stutter with it. They're stuttering the vocal hook and they
come out with a music video. The music video shows
a model who is miming along to this altered hook.
And even though black Box cleared the sample they had
(42:32):
a licensing agreement with the label, they got a legal
challenge from Holloway's lawyers because they didn't credit her vocal.
They got the rights to it, but they didn't put
her name in there. And so there are a lot
of variables. There are a lot of not love that's term,
but there are a lot of stakeholders. And the best
way to put it is air on the side of caution.
(42:55):
All the legal precedents aside which are still being made.
You could argue, if you publish music that takes somebody
else's work samples it without permission, you could theoretically face
a legal challenge, no matter how short the sample is,
no matter how obscure. Basically, I think the rule of
thumb is you're more likely to have lawyers at your
(43:19):
door if you're using a very recognizable sample, and if
you're making any significant amount of money. Well, and we've.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Talked a little bit about fair use, the idea of
fair use, and you know, there are certain factors like
parody you know, for or like you know, satire, I
guess is considered a factor of fair use that could
be protected. Another one is the idea of making using
the work in a way that is transformative, and that
(43:46):
refers to adding something new, to give it a kind
of a recontextualize, give it a different purpose, different character,
or do not substitute for the original use of the work.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
But here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
While fair use is defense, it still means you got
to go to court.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah. Also, also anybody associated with the legal world, any
attorney who is a ridiculous historian. When you hear people
who are not lawyers talking about fair use, I can
only imagine that your your chest titans and your stomach drops.
Because every time I've been talking about fair use with
any sort of legal department, aw it, they all love
(44:26):
it. It's not there. It's not their favorite string of words
in English. So a lot of producers do get away
with using unlicensed samples, right breakbeats, drum solos. There are
also tons and tons of tracks that get lost in
studio limbo. They never see the light of day. Fast
forward several decades. Someone comes in and they say, oh wow,
(44:48):
I really like this hook from this unreleased nineteen sixties thing, right,
And they may not even know if it's cutting room
floor stuff. They may not even know the original artist,
and they're just like, I like this song. Imagine if
it had a cool, you know, synth beat behind it. Now,
you see, for for a little while there were CDs
(45:10):
that were compilations of samples and you could just take
this and do with it what you will. However, that
was a pretty short lived halcyon era. Now we're talking
about sample libraries, and we use these in the world
of podcasting because we like it saves a lot of
time and a lot of heartache to go into some
(45:33):
kind of archive a collection of sound cues or honestly
sound alike music. A lot of people use that, right,
Uh did you see did you watch thirty Rock? Oh? Yeah,
thirty Rock had this great this great bit. It wasn't
the main part of an episode, but they had this
great bit where they ran into legal issues trying to
(45:53):
do a Joplin Yeah, Jedis Jorplin or Nick Jump jorb yeah,
whatever they call it. Yeah. And this they have this
hilarious depiction of the corporate side of this, wherein the
person playing the character they cannot call Jaddis Joplin sings
(46:14):
songs that have to be just different enough for them
not to get sued.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Well, And I think there was actually a real life
example of that where Andre three thousand, no maybe he
was gonna do I can't remember who ended up playing.
There's Jimmy Hendrix biopic that has no Jimmy Hendrix music
in it at all. And that's interesting, right, And Like,
I'm actually working on a podcast about the Rolling Stones
and about album Exile on Main Street and rather than
(46:39):
you know, we could clear all the music, but it
would be very expensive, and we're trying to tell a
story in audio form. So I was actually lucky enough
to work with a bunch of really great musicians and
make it. I wouldn't call it sound alike music because
it's not like this one is supposed to be a
one to one for jumping Jack flash. It's more just
vibey music in the you know, genre of the time,
(47:00):
and like record it in a way that gives it
that same feel, maybe similar instrumentation. But that's a lot
of the kind of stuff you'll find on these libraries.
And then you also will have sample libraries that are
really high fidelity recordings of saying orchestra doing like oh
stressful horror Q number three, right, and anyone can use
(47:22):
it because it's cleared for that use. And usually when
you sign up for one of these services there are
terms of the use, and if you're not careful, you
might notice that, oh, you can't actually use it in
this setting. So always be careful if you're using stuff
like that. And sometimes they're not cleared in perpetuity across
all creation, you.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Know, right, Yeah, you have to read the fine print
very carefully because the fine print is where the ugly
things can be hidden, especially consequences. So these sample libraries
are very very useful and efficacious because they have a license,
and the license may be restricted to certain usages. It
may have any number of constraints a time window, for instance,
(48:03):
or saying that this can be used, but it cannot
be used in the following ways. It just goes on.
When it comes to sampling music laws, you have to
know the lay of the land, and you have to
assume that it's possible you could accidentally cross some kind
of threshold trip a legal wire of some sort. And
(48:24):
the one of the issues that a lot of copy
left proponents have, if you're familiar with the copy left movement,
one of the issues they have regarding copyright protection is
that it increases the barriers for up and coming artists
in the world of music. It can make things incredibly difficult.
Like if you're a musician in the United States, at
(48:45):
least from what I understand, music is automatically copyrighted from
the get go. You have to when you when you
commit it to some medium, right you have to So
you have to always assume you need permission to use
someone else's work in your stuff, even if it's a
tiny thing, you know what I mean. I can't believe
we got through I think we've done this on purpose,
(49:07):
But I can't believe we got through uh a two
part episode and didn't mention the debacle of vanilla ice.
Of course, yeah, that's probably really familiar.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
But that whole clip of him defending that is part
and parcel of like not just not getting it right. So, no,
they left out a note. You know ours is is?
It repeats the note, and I think the it's under
pressure by Queen and David Bowie and this is baseline
and in the real one they just repeat that. They
(49:38):
don't do the pickup note and then the vanilla ice one.
I guess they added the note. I'm a little unclear.
It is the sample, right, Like, it's definitely a sample.
It's not just them copying that baseline and playing it differently,
is it.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Ah, it doesn't really matter for the purpose of this argument.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
But he on behind the music or whatever they was,
defends it by saying, no, no, see ours is different. Yeah,
ay has one extra note and that's just kind of
missing the point. But what ended up happening with that?
Did he have to give up a massive portion of
his royalties? I think so.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Actually he agreed to a private settlement. They stayed out
of court because he paid to have the rights to
under pressure, and then he credited both Bowie and Queen
on I Sized Baby, so the songwriting credit still goes
to them. That you know, that's a all's well, that
(50:30):
ends well sort of thing, and not all of these
things end well. But be on the side of the air,
on the side of caution as as a creator, as
a musician, because even with the best of intentions right,
even if you're most people doing this aren't out for
a cash grab. When you're making music, you're just inspired
by something you want to share and communicate that inspiration
(50:54):
tis a noble thing, but you gotta be careful. Unlike
music licensing, to do a cover right and sell a cover,
you don't have to have a sampling license. This means
that the holder of the copyright doesn't have any obligation
to grant you permission. The original rights holder can basically
(51:18):
create their own playing field. They can decide the terms
for clearing a sample. They can say no.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Case in point to the settlement out of court with
Bowie and Queen, they obviously were good sports about it
relatively or that also was a little earlier on right
and before maybe their lawyers would have been like, nah,
we want to get points on this for like ever
in all time. Apparently e ice Baby generates about half
a million dollars a year, you know, in royalties.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
There are certain examples where artists who have been sampled
and hasn't been cleared have pushed to the point of
now they get every bit of that you know money.
Ye like with the case of Walk on the wild
Side by Lou Reed and a tribe called Quest.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
How about this one Old Crow Medicine show how they
broke out with wagon Wheel that skyrocketed them to national
and global acclaim. Now, of course, these guys Old Crow,
they are a bunch of very talented musicians. They've had
a lot of past members, but they're they're all really good. No,
Trump's in the squad. Wagon Wheel is based on an
(52:30):
unfinished Bob Dylan song, and they had to go back
and work with Bob Dylan's team to make sure everything
was right and not to sound too mafioso about it,
to make sure everyone was made whole. Oh yeah, exactly now.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
And then that's you know, and that's not sampling, that's
a cover or an interpolation. If you will because they
kind of took it in a different direction because it
was not a completed song. So it's hard to cover
something that hasn't been fully you know. But as y'all
can see, I mean, this whole world just has so
many interesting ins and outs and we're not at the
(53:06):
end of it by a long shot. Because now, if anything,
the playing field is wide open, and that we have
this wealth of records, you know, that you can get
at thrift stores for no money, and interesting up andcoming artists,
things like vapor Wave where people are sampling, like you know,
literally there's a whole I just got this record from
Poland by this artist called Macintosh. Plus I got it
from Poland because it's a bootleg. You can't get this
(53:29):
album in any sanctioned form because it's just full of
uncleared samples, like you know, half speed kind of lounge
music and you know, weird old like radio commercials and
like that's the vapor wave things. So there are whole
new musical cultures around uncleared samples. But it's all taken
to the internet. Oh you know, yeah, it very much is.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
And here is where I think we we wrap our
series for today, by which I mean we're both about
to freestyle. I'm kiddet, we are going to We're gonna
call it a day. This is such, This is such
a journey, and it's one that continues, and we wanted
to explore the origin of what we call sampling and
(54:12):
music all the way to the modern day. Sampling will continue.
Legislation is always outpaced by technology, and somewhere right now,
as we record, there is a mad genius in a
studio or maybe in their garage building the next breakthrough
in the world of sampling, and I, for one can't
(54:34):
wait to hear it.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
No, I can't either, And like you know, I am
I'm not saying I am said mad genius or anything,
but basically all the records that I have down in
my studio are weird thrift store fines of like drum
you know, drum circles and children's records with weird little
melodies and stuff from the sixties. It's like political spoken
word things or you know, congo bands or whatever. You know,
(54:58):
a lot of weird cre ristian records that were made
probably in very limited runs by churches. They end up
in these thrift stores around the South here. But to
your point, Ben I love sampling this stuff for fun.
I would be very careful if I was going to
release it, because even if I think no one's even
maybe alive associated with this weird religious record you know
from the sixties, but who knows, maybe someone is and
(55:20):
if the song became a hit, all of a sudden
that person takes notice. The fact that they committed that
thing to vinyl in the sixties is proof that they
own the copyright.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Yeah, so be careful out there, folks. We can't wait
to hear the next generation of sampling, the next generation
of music concrete, big, big thanks to super producer mister
Max Williams. Huge thanks to research associate Jeff Bartlett, who
really whit hard in the paint on this one. And
(55:51):
thanks to let's see who would be the most likely
to sue us for copyright in frenchman Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 2 (55:57):
M Yeah, well I'm not. I ain't scared. Let's in
a fringe away on mister Strickland man. This is a
fantastic conversation, Ben, and thanks Max for always being with
us as our super producer, you know, on the ones
and twos, as Ben would say, and now we know
where that actually we didn't really explain the one on
(56:17):
the one being the left turn table, two being the
right turn table.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
There you go, There you go, folks, We'll see you
next time.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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