Final Project Except 1

The repurposing of otherwise original content is certainly a feature that penetrates all forms of media, whether unconscious or overt. Films, for example, may include homages to past directors in the form of imitation, be it the recreation of some signature shot or a reference to a well-known scene or sequence. Tropes are commonly recycled amongst all forms of storytelling, Hollywood films especially. The most immediate example that comes to mind is the arrogant but irreverently funny superhero archetype typically featured in Marvel films. Collages often incorporate elements of other works in an attempt to convey an idea wholly unique, while Internet culture has chosen the image macro as its shared form of humor.

This trend certainly does not evade music either. The practice of sampling and interpolation in recent years have become mainstays in many popular music genres, including pop, hip-hop and some sub-genres of electronic music. And yet, compared to other mediums, I feel repurposing in this realm is disproportionately admonished. Purists reckon that music should be entirely self-composed, while advocates for musical acts that incorporate facets like sampling argue that it can be a creative venture and, perhaps more importantly, accomplish unique things that traditionally-produced music cannot. I’m more inclined to agree with the latter, and I say this as someone who happens to enjoy both repurposed and original music. However, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the points raised by purists are without merit. Repurposed music, as with most things, exists along a spectrum and engenders a continuum of quality, from the brilliant to downright awful. Were one to pull from either side of the spectrum, I’m sure whatever point their making would be well-enforced, albeit fundamentally misleading. Instead, what I hope to do here is to approach this from as impartial a vantage point as possible. I’ll begin with a very informal overview of sampling, before considering more specific examples as a means to delineate between what I would consider to be an inspired and unimaginative use of music in this way.

As far as I can tell, sampling – at least in a popular music sense – is a fairly recent phenomenon. I would trace its sonic origins to hip-hop and certain off shoots of electronic music in the 70s (though I’m sure there’s some contingent of music aficionados who would take issue with that assessment). Originally, the art form was limited to simple loops. A useful video for illustrating this is Nate Harrison’s video on the “Amen break”, an expression used to refer to an infamous drum snippet commonly sampled in a variety of genres of music. Harrison first introduces the loop, before showing some common songs in which it was inserted. This cutting and pasting of short sonic segments from songs represents the core formula of sampling that successors would go onto modulate. Combining multiple loops together, pitching up and down samples, modifying the speed and splicing together chopped up segments of a loop in a rhythmically unique manner represent more nuanced techniques employed in sampling. Of course, these developments all trend with the availability of different musical hardware. Modern day samplers and digital audio workstations enable a more diverse array of tools then their turntable predecessors. All this has led to a fairly diverse ecosystem of music featuring samples. In the past two years alone, you had standard hip-hop fare in the form of Kanye West’s most recent record, The Life of Pablo, replete with pitched vocal samples, chopping and drum loops. The Avalanches’, Wildflower, was more-or-less a reaffirmation of their sonic-collage style, termed plunderphonics. On Garden of Delete, Oneohtrix Point Never glitched out source material beyond recognition. Most strange of all though is Matmos’ latest effort, Ultimate Care II, which was mostly, if not entirely, composed of samples they obtained from their washing machine. In my estimation, all of these examples provide ample evidence that sampling can be an intrinsically creative endeavor.