I am not against sampling by any means, but I do feel that it does have a tendency to take away from the overall creativity of the artist in question. There are many bands that use sound clips from other mediums such as television and film in songs, but I would not call that true sampling. The band Dr. Acula uses bits from the late comedian Mitch Hedberg, A Day to Remember uses “fight” from mortal combat, but I would not classify either case as “sampling,” but rather just using a sound bite from another source. The line between sampling and creative use can become blurry though, and it often takes a keen ear to hear the difference. The way I see it is if the sound bite is used repeatedly throughout the song, then it is a sample, but if it is used once, then I see it as no harm, no foul.
Sampling almost seems to be a last resort (or at least it should be) to get something interesting into a song that otherwise is lacking. I am all for new music and originality, but if there is a band playing at a local show, and they need to have an iPod ready with a sound clip, or have a laptop on stage to play a backing track, then I will likely not give them any time. It pains me to say that, as I am a huge believer in supporting the up and coming bands that are in the local areas and scenes, but they have to be original. The band that I am in currently is trying to decide a song that we should cover in order to get the crowd motivated to listen to us, play something familiar; but that doesn’t mean that we are willing to use sound clips from the original song and simply play our instruments over them. We want to do our own spin on the song, while keeping it recognizable enough to be known what song it is.
After writing this blog, I can say that I have somewhat changed my view on sampling. In the beginning, I thought it wasn’t that bad of a thing overall, but after getting all my thoughts out here onto the great black abyss that is the web, I can see that I feel differently about the topic now. I now realize that I feel strongly that sampling music is a show of lack of talent and desire to come up with something original and creative. I still feel that I am open to new types of music and new bands, but if the band has some sampling in there that is fairly strong, then they have their work cut out for them to win my affection and support.
Support local music!
Support local music!
On the contrary, I had believed sampling to be a new direction for creativity. It has the ability to induce feelings of nostalgia, as well as the ability to recycle old content through music. I can understand your need to be original and creative and understand that you are not too fond of electronic music such as dance and techno, as suggested by your reading discussion topic. These particular genres of electronic music have a way of incorporating bits of other songs, namely older pieces. Agreeably, some DJs do it poorly, but the ones who know how to properly synthesize it together, make a great song. One example I can think of right now is DJ Doboy (simply because I’m listening to it right now) and he puts together a lot of good mixes.
ReplyDeleteI can’t really relate with you as far as being in a band goes, but perhaps it’s a matter of skill. Some groups or individuals might not have the talent to perform as well without that additional help, and others, you might have to say it enhances their performance drastically. Either way, both spectrums, between the electronic and organic musicians, are required in order for large preferences and diversity to exist within the music industry.