Sample Post 5

Exploring through whosampled.com shows how much the music industry relies on sampling, be it a beat, a riff, chorus, shriek,etc., most musicians rely on the influence and inspiration of others. To an extent this is quite innovative when producing new pieces, yet when multiple groups share the same beats it becomes an aesthetic issue more or less to the audience. Sampling music is similar to coining a phrase, you may be the originator of that phrase yet coining doesn’t’ entitle the creator instant profit from the phrase if it becomes mainstream/viral. Much like phrases I view music as being coined allowing for the wide public to view and manipulate their experience of viewing to their liking. Even if this means sampling beats and lyrics in order to create or inspire their own works. As artist sample other works, they are recreating the piece through their own experience adding their personal reflective style to the sampled piece. Miller points out that the twenty-first-century self is so fully immersed in and defined by the data that surrounds it…(Miller 61). Themes throughout art are repeated, this can be seen in mediums such as: music, film, television, books, games. Concepts can be drawn from previous arts and used to create/inspire an idea that will be used in a similar manner yet portrayed in a different way. Listening and watching the sampled piece of The White Stripes song Fell in Love With a Girl and being applied to Weird Al’s parody Angry White Boy Polka shows creative use of the Stripes beat and chorus line, yet when he copied the music video clip of the music segment sampled seemed too much. Like those at Costco who lunch off the samples and take too much, same goes with the sampling of music, in that taking too much of something becomes stealing. This is the issue touched on by Keller and others in conflict with copyright laws. Just how much is enough to be considered stealing or an original creation? Overall I feel that allowing the freedom to sample and create “Frankenstein” music or any other arts should be promoted, especially in a society that is becoming more and more a “mix culture”.

“Rhythm science builds on the early success of file-sharing to create a milieu where people can exchange culture and information at will and create new forms, new styles, new ways of thinking (Miller 65).”

   We sample and collage/create these samples in a fashion that reflects our form of thought and expression we reference in order to make ourselves credible as well as familiar. Bridging these samples allows for the discovery of new-old and new-new artist, just as whosampled.com has done. It creates connections to other artist and creators of similar styles and idea that we may not have known if it weren’t for the sampled segment, in a way it is creating a wider audience base and publicity for similar sounding beats, lyrics, and what have you.