Monday, April 16, 2012

Blog 5 Who Sampled

I find this concept of sampling very interesting.  I think that songs that are deliberately using the beat of the song, along with the lyrics is not considered 'innovative'.  If the beat of the song is remixed then it could be seen as more of a new twist on the songs, but a lot of songs use the exact song sampled in a new song.

I looked at the song 'We are the Champions' by Queen.  This song is used as a sample in a lot of songs.  For example, Kanye West used this song in his version 'Champions.'  This song uses the beat and the lyrics of the Queen version just with some rapping thrown in.  This song has a much different sound that the original version and it does appeal to an entirely different demographic, but I do not see it as innovative to use a lot of the original song in the new version.  To me, I feel like more of the song should be changed to view the use as a 'sample.'

In another example of the use of Queen's song, Wiz Khalifa created 'Phone Numbers.'  In this song, the back beat is very similar to the beat of the original, but the lyrics are different.  I think this is a much better example of the correct use of sampling.  Here, the artist uses the original song to create a completely new song with an entirely new meaning.

I think that for a song to use a sample of a different song, the new version should be completely different and reinvented.  In a lot of cases that doesn't happen.  I would consider it stealing for the entire song, or section of a song, to be used in a new format.

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