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A History of Sampling, Part Two: Creativity in Court · Ridiculous History

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