Lazy Samples and Rock Goes Pop
A few weeks ago, I commented about how I thought a specific sample was lazy. I want to clarify what I meant by that.
In the newsletter two weeks ago, I mentioned how I thought Jack Harlow sampling "Glamorous" on his recent hit record "First Class" was lazy. My girlfriend took this to mean that I thought sampling was lazy. This couldn't be further from the truth. Because of that, I wanted to clarify some things about...
Lazy Sampling & Lazy Songwriting
As a musician, the songs we make often bare the mark of our influences. While some of these markings are hard to spot, there are three types that are a bit more obvious.
Covers: We usually cover songs because we are infatuated with them. When a pre-fame Post Malone uploaded a cover of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," to YouTube, he was clearly swayed by Dylan's early-60s' twang.
Interpolations: Rather than covering an entire song, sometimes an artist will re-record a small part of it. For example, on Kanye West's "Gold Digger," Jamie Foxx's sings a few lines from Ray Charles' decades old hit "I Got a Woman." But interpolation is as old as the day is long. In fact, when Charles made "I Got a Woman," he was just secularizing an old gospel song called "Must Be Jesus."
Samples: While interpolation requires an artist to re-record a snippet of an older song, sampling requires an artist to directly manipulate the recording of that song. This might involve chopping it into smaller bits, adjusting the speed, or reversing it, among many other things. On Eminem's first hit "My Name Is," he is rapping over a sample from Labi Siffre' 1975 song "I Got The..."
There is nothing inherently lazy about any of these. But all of them can be lazy. For example, I think Darius Rucker's cover of "Wagon Wheel" is lazy. I think Ava Max interpolating the melody from Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" on her 2020 hit "Kings & Queens" is lazy. I also think Jack Harlow sampling Fergie's "Glamorous" on "First Class" is lazy. Why? Because each of these seems like they're trying to cash in on a popular song from yesteryear without adding much to the conversation.
Just because I think a song is lazy, doesn't mean I can't enjoy it. I'm partially being a snob. That said, it's much cooler when artists use those elements in unexpected ways, like when DEVO turned The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" into a staggering, zonked out mess or when M.I.A. and Diplo re-recorded the riff from The Clash's "Straight to Hell" on their 2000s' classic "Paper Planes" or when A Tribe Called Quest set a piece of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" to a drum beat and rapped over it on their seminal record "Can I Kick It?" Since the beginning of time, songwriters have been using the same tools in creative and lazy ways. Next week, we'll measure how common the above-mentioned tools have been over the last few decades.
A New One
"Rumble" by Skrillex, Fred Again..., & Flowdan
2023 - Electronic Grime
Rockers are unpredictable. Take Karl Martin Sandberg as an example. After his band It's Alive released their disappointing sophomore album Earthquake Visions, he began producing pop music under the name Max Martin. Since then, Martin has written more number one hits than anyone besides John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Skrillex's path is just as curious. After playing in various punk bands throughout the 2000s, he dropped it all to create electronic music. Since making the switch, he's produced songs for Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, and The Weeknd, among others. "Rumble" sees him tapping into the U.K. rap scene that we discussed a few weeks ago. In the same way that you can often catch rock riffs throughout Max Martin's pop oeuvre, if you listen closely to "Rumble," you might hear bits of Skrillex's punky past.
An Old One
"Hit or Miss - Live" by Odetta
1976 - Acoustic Soul
The first time I heard Odetta's voice I assumed she was an up-and-coming singer. Something about her sound was so contemporary. When I saw that she was born in 1930, I was floored. Odetta's voice wasn't contemporary. It was timeless. Throughout her career, she dove deep into the history of folk, blues, and soul music. On "Hit or Miss" you not only get to hear how she united all three of those styles, but how she was also a deft composer. There's a reason she was praised by Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Harry Belafonte, Carly Simon, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
My name is chika-chika,
Chris Dalla Riva
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