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Borrowed Time: Musical Debt in an Age of Sampling

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Borrowed Time: Musical Debt in an Age of Sampling Borrowed Time: Musical Debt in an age of Sampling iStock / yanyong by James Hendicott ecently, a British DJ named Martyn Web- in which it appears, according to sample-tracking ster concluded a crowdfunding campaign website whosampled.com, is nearly 2,000 tracks Rthat saw him hand over £24,000 ($36,500) long. The first few dozen are massive hit singles, a to Richard L. Spencer, vocalist and last surviving virtual compendium of modern urban music that member of 60s funk and soul act The Winstons. includes N.W.A’s “Straight Outta Compton,” The Having handed over the cash, Webster immediately Prodigy’s “Poison,” and Skrillex’s “I Know Who You restarted his crowd-funding campaign for a second Are.” The Economist recently called the break “a round. short burst of drumming that changed the face of The Winstons are the authors of a four-bar, six- music.” To say its lifting, editing, and repurposing second drum solo called the Amen Break, so named was revolutionary in certain quarters actually bor- because it was featured on The Winston’s 1969 track ders on understatement. “Amen Brother.” This tiny extract was revitalized in While the trajectory of the Amen Break is par- hip-hop, jungle, and drum-and-bass circles in the ticularly extreme, it is just one example of sam- 1980s, going on to become arguably the most sam- pling’s transformation of music. The technique pled drum loop of all time. With the scene growing can be found as far back as The Beatles, but it was in an organic, underground way, Spencer and his hip-hop that made the practice commercially im- bandmates were oblivious to the pervasive success portant. of a few seconds of their music. Due to a combina- tion of old copyright law and statutes of limitations, their reward for laying the groundwork for a musi- cal movement—until Webster came along—was not a single cent. Artists that use the Amen Break range from Oasis to Nas, N.W.A. to Slipknot. The list of songs The Technoskeptic The question “What is art?” feels as old as time, recording is “substantially similar.” This is widely bro- with a common conclusion being simply “we know ken down into two parts: “fragmented literal similarity” it when we see it.” When a piece of music is recon- (in music’s case, lifting or use of a small part from an- structed into something with a totally different feel, a other track) and “comprehensive nonliteral similarity” changed atmospheric, or a different edge to the mean- (using the fundamental structure or pattern of another ing—like much of the early jungle scene—we can prob- work). The Amen Break would be a good example of ably agree, whether we’re fans or not, that it has some the former, while Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”—found artistic value. liable for infringement on Marvin Gaye’s work, though What happens, though, when you find a track that there’s (legally acknowledged, at least) no direct lifting are basically constructed on someone else’s work? of a Gaye track—is a controversial recent example of When parts of Coldplay’s “Talk” the latter. are painfully reminiscent of In today’s world of popular Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love,” or remixes and electronic produc- Cat Stevens has to sue The Flam- tion techniques, sampling is an ing Lips for “Fight Test’s” use of ever-growing issue. Programs “Father and Son” (and ends up like GarageBand are available with 75% of the royalties). Or at very low cost, and while they Blur imitates Bowie on “M.O.R.,” come pre-programmed with or the entire Beach Boys track samples (usually free to use), it’s “Surfin’ USA” sounds exactly incredibly easy to upload and like Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little mash together content taken Sixteen.” What about when the from other recordings, and as- entire hook of Coolio’s “Gang- tonishingly difficult for original sta’s Paradise”—a song without artists to track down those copy- which he arguably wouldn’t right breaches. While record have a name to speak of in the labels and bigger acts will typi- music industry—is transparent- cally take care to track down a ly lifted from Stevie Wonder’s license for the content they use, “Pastime Paradise”? Or Vanilla any track used for commercial Ice’s liberal use of Queen/David purposes has the same require- Bowie’s “Under Pressure” in “Ice ment to do so. Ice Baby”? Some of these cases Rapper Kanye West is are samples, some are plain old known throughout the industry (and sometimes acknowledged) for his use of samples, many of rip offs. Are any of them fair? which are credited—often at a What constitutes a sample rate of several per track—in his is complex. It’s only natural that © The Technoskeptic album liner notes. Without a of all the millions of tracks out there, two sets of identi- big-budget record label, West would struggle to afford cal consecutive notes and rhythms are going to come the royalty payments needed to release his albums, along every so often. Technically, US copyright laws and that’s before online arguments alleging uncred- are harsh: lifting a single note from another recording ited samples come about. To produce music in the is a breach of copyright. The difficulty, of course, would way West does today, being well off is essentially a come in proving that such a lift has taken place. pre-requisite. The legal terminology in the US, as outlined in Others tread a fine line between sample and hom- Eric Osterberg’s Substantial Similarity in Copyright age. Canadian R&B star The Weeknd was accused Law, states that a copyright breach has occurred if a of heavily sampling cult-English-dour-indie band Portishead’s “Machine Gun” on his track “Belong To The GarageBand, Ableton, Logic Pro, and similar World” (the similarity, to be fair, is particularly pointed). music software can’t be responsible for copyright Portishead eventually retracted their complaint, say- infringement, but they certainly enable it, and have ing there was “no sample used or enough likeness to helped make copy/paste pervasive in modern music. ‘Machine Gun’ to warrant any infringement…or credit,” There are machines out there today—like The Wub which sounds distinctly like a legal withdrawal rather Machine and the KORG Volca Sample—that are all but than a happy acceptance. The capable of making tracks from Weeknd, meanwhile, had previ- samples themselves by sequen- ously been denied permission If modern copyright law tially inserting pre-programmed to use the same sample, and samples into a live track during could be applied to the admitted Portishead was his performance. main influence on the album. Amen Break, Richard It feels like only a matter of Not a sample, then, but a slight- time before a track made from Spencer would almost ly-altered recreation is hardly a simply feeding a sample through glowing endorsement of origi- certainly be a millionaire. an algorithm becomes a hit; the nality, and perhaps a symptom technology already exists. It’s a of a problem. huge stretch to call that art. So why does it matter? It’s undeniably obvious to If modern copyright law could be applied to the state that artists have their influences, that musical Amen Break, Richard Spencer would almost certainly history flows gently through even the most original of be a millionaire. Instead, he finds himself thanking tracks, that art has always been inspired by other art. strangers for a small income relating to a sub-culture On one side of the fence sit the sampling-is-part-of- his band unwittingly helped to create. the-art crowd, while on the other, listeners argue that “I am surprised, encouraged, uplifted, and thank- the art has been stolen, be it entirely or partially. ful for the kind people who are making this very im- When I spoke to popular UK rave band The Prod- portant statement of musical brotherhood,” he said, igy recently (another band, incidentally, that uses the on receiving his recent check, a fraction of Kanye Amen Break in more than one of their tracks), their West’s daily income, in exchange for a creation that beatsmith Liam Howlett pulled no punches, slamming sparked a new culture. Webster deserves credit: he’s the “lazy” modern DJing scene: done more to reward Spencer than any of the people “They’re the fuckin’ jokers that stop this music whose careers were built standing firmly rooted on his getting taken seriously. Skits on Saturday Night Live shoulders. Spencer’s band’s beats were an inspiration takin’ the piss? That’s where it’s ended up…. That’s not to millions, though. He deserved so much more, and so what electronic music is about. The lazy DJs, they does the music scene. have to be exposed.” Among the sweary edges of the dance-lovers, there’s a growing consensus that the accessibility and usability of samples are making popular DJs less cre- ative, lazier, and ultimately—for many—a bit of waste of time. The growing consensus is that samples aren’t fueling creativity, they’re diminishing originality. The Technoskeptic When rap duo Run The Jewels record thousands of TheTechnoskeptic.com cats, turn them into a tongue-in-cheek hip-hop record PO Box 391463 called Meow The Jewels and find critical acclaim for Cambridge, MA 02139 “originality,” it’s hard to argue. 888-541-8877.
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