JSngry

There's about 35 years worth of BB King & Bobby Bland records that say otherwise...

Further meditations: Ok, are we stealing songs or are we stealing hooks? Are we writing songs or are we writing hooks? And if so, does this mean that the hook is the money of a song? And if so, does that mean that the rest of the song - all of it - is fair use for anything and anybody, since it's not the money? And does that imply that a song without hooks is a song without money? And does it mean that a song like "Eleanor Rigby" a song that is all hook (go ahead, sing one phrase in isolation that doesn't immediately "sound like Eleanor Rigby"), all money? If so, does this mean that a song is only as valuable as its hook & therefore only hooks should be copyright-able? And if so does this mean that writers should focus more on wiritng hooks and less on songs, or does it meant that anybody who can write an all-hook song like Eleanor Rigby is to be attained for, even if that means good luck on that one, sucker? Or how about this notion - a hook is actually not about the song at all. It's a little cell of sound that conveys information. The "song" is only the vehicle that delivered the hook, and now the song is becoming obsolete as people seem to only "need" that little cell of sound that conveys information? And how is music being about little cells of sound that conveys information now all that much different in underlying esthetic than when it was "avant-garde" in the jazz & classical idioms not all that many years ago? And if so, then does this mean that for once and for all that "song form" music is no longer - or at least on the way to becoming no longer - the form of music to which most audiences in most idioms (there's always Country & Gospel & Children's Music and such, but...) most readily relate, and if so, does that mean that all the legal hoopla is ultimately, whether consciously or not, about trying to keep alive that - the song form, which in itself sprung up out of no small strictly commercial motivations - which might well be dieing a natural death for the sake of wringing yet more $$$ out of it, in which case, couldn't we just let the poor fucker die and get it over with?

I think what we are seeing is the beginning of the final elimination of the last 50 or so years of popular music out of the collective digestive tract. Inevitable, and long overdue, I say. So let it be. Let all that old fecal material finally get purged out of the system. It's a good thing to happen.

Ok, Devil's advocate question here - we're talking about American Popular Music of the last 50 years or so, a common - sometimes horribly so - language of deep but also narrow origins (note the plural, origins). Who really, really "owns" it? The people who created the basic root vocabulary? The people who wrote the songs based on that vocabulary? The people who made the records? The people who now own the rights to the records?

Why is music the exception? In business I can't go around stealing ideas and property from people that have it all protected. At least, not legally. Even though I to have to pay for and renew annually my expensive-ass licenses, permits and all kinds of other bullshit. Go figure. It's not like DJ Girl Talk (lame ass name, by the way) is doing this for the love of it all and is not getting paid. Why should he not pay a token to those that really own it? Hey - lameass buttugly rockstar posers (and look on the bright side - what all this is doing is killing the rock star as we've known and loathed it for several decades now...) can pull al the hot babes while a hardworking buttugly schoolteacher has to get by with the lovely and talented Rosy. Because life's not fair. That's why.

Some further research... Ok, the best you can say about this is that it's "clever". It's in no way artful, nor is it particularly creative. Cats have been dpoing sampling and collages for years a helluva lot better than this. This is like a severe dumbing down of the whole sampling/collage trip. The K-Tel analogy is both apt and telling... But it's precisely because of that, the fact that this is a really cheap exposition of what others have done artfully, that makes the real issue for me a simple one - this is bad music. End of story. (Which means, though, that the people who do it well are making good music (imo).) Now, if we gonna fine everybody who makes bad music, hey, we oughta be able to pay off the National Debt in, what, 20 minutes? That's a good thing. But if we're going to say that as a matter of principal that it is not ok to use records as building blocks for new musical constructions but that it is ok to lift a bar or a phrase from a preexisting composition and incorporate it into a new work to be performed by "real people", then it seems to me that that's not too much different than dictating to a painter what media they can or cannot use under penalty of law. An imperfect analogy, sure, but the fat remains - there is, and has been for some time now - a collection of talent that is both compelled to and quite adept at using records the way other people use manuscript paper and a pencil. I suppose we can do our damnedest to kill it, but really, what good would come of that? And what more good would come from encouraging those who really are good at it to keep on exploring and growing? If the measure of any creative movement's irrevocable entrenchment in the creative landscape is the appearance of a hack who becomes wildly popular, then perhaps Girl Talk is to sampling what Vanilla Ice was to hip hop (and on backward into perpetuity). So, if a movement is in fact entrenched, and if the "laws" are still not able to get even a basic grasp as to what's going on, doesn't that tell us that the car is out of the garage and a few hundred miles down the road and that Grandpa is standing in the driveway waiting for it to get back from the corner gas station"

If one man fucks another man's wife and a child is conceived from the union and grows up to be a successful human being, that makes it both, and then some, no? People with a weak stomach for ambiguity better just...stay inside for the next few decades.

The more things change...

Yeah, so? I mean, this is the world we've made for ourselves. Too late to wish it away, and even later than that if anybody wants to kill it before it spreads.

I think we should make any motherfucker who wants to create music today buy an expensive-ass license, have it have to be renewed annually, and fine the hell out of them any time they sample. Make a motherfucker pay to play, and slap his ass silly with fineage every time he pulls from us old folk. That would be an environment conducive to the creation of new music now, wouldn't it now. Damn straight it would be!

Listened to a few Girl Talk clips on YouTube. Not particularly my thing, but I'm really not seeing what the problem is, not particularly. I mean, really, we cut music education funding in schools for a couple decades while at the same time creating technology which makes it possible for anybody to make music out of any combination of 1s & 0s they can get their hands on, and then when people start feeling the creative urge and use the tools they have at hand, the old guard freaks out. Well DUH, bitches, what the hell did you think was going to happen? That motherfuckers were going to save up and pay to play with those 1s & 0s? That they would forevermore suck your dicks instead of finding some nice, friendly place to put their own? These are people, remember, and people gonna do what people gonna do. Eventually. When they get able. And now, it seems, they are able. You'd think that a society built on/by centuries of superimposing itself over preexisting cultures on their land, with no particular regard for established ownerships and customs (and no, this is not a dis or anything, it's just a recognition of How The West Was Won, and I've been getting through 100 + degree days not all that upset about any of that, thank you), would recognize the inevitability of what is happening rather than being outraged at having its own essential impetus held up to itself as a sign of its self-created changing of the guard. Guess not.

I like how she uses pitch to create suspense.

It's buried deep in my closet and not readily available, but I do know that Calliman mentioned Iapetus in the multi-part Cadence interview he did a while back. There might be some tighter chronology there.

That was what I thought.

Yeah, what are we talking about here, the Olympics, or the bullshit surrounding the Olympics? Don't tell me that you can' separate them, because I'll tell you like Baraka told peeps when they said, they couldn't dance to bebop - yeah, you can't. It's still the premier international competition for a big bunch of athletes, and if you don't want to dig that because of all the other stuff that goes on outside the moments of competition, fine. Be that way about it if that's all you get out of it. I have neither the time nor the inclinationto watch these sports year 'round, so the Olympics is a fine way for me to see them with most of the main playas in place. If you can find a better deal, take it. But for me & the mizzus, hey, we have always liked us some Olympics, and I reckon we will again this year. We got us some digital cable and we don't plan on being wholly tethered to to prime time mini-series (whihc is part of the bullshit surrounding the Olympics).

Me & the mizzus have always liked us some Olympics, especially the track & field & swimming events (me) & the gymnastics (her). Didn't care about the politics then nor now, just like the games.

"I'll see you at the debates, bitches." If it wasn't Paris Hilton, I would be so in love right now...

Gotcha. Thanks for that clarification.

Ok, so it seems that the reality is that these tracks are the originals, but also that reverse-engineering is possible with current software. So, it's Certs! Interesting times, indeed!

As far as I know, these are from the original multitrack tapes. There is a lot of stuff out there in this category, including stuff by Queen, The Jackson Five, Beatles, etc. So these tracks are actually lifted out of the studio archives then? Wasn't Motown still doing 3-track in 1967? (for that matter, wasn't Abbey Road the only Beatles album done on more than 3 track?) The file I downloaded has everything separate, 2 separate key tracks, 1 track with 2 or 3 guitars, separate string track (interesting, that one is...), Jamerson all by himself, and, of course, the stars of the show, each on their own track. Would such individual tracks have existed from a 1967 Motown session, or would they have to be "retro-engineered" into creation? And if so, doesn't the technology already exist in home software to do that? I'm not claiming you're wrong, mind you, I was just under the impression that "take apart" software was already out there in the sampling world, stuff that allowed you to focus in on one part and pull it out. Don't know anything about this stuff, just that I've "heard about it" here and there, and that both my kids seem to think that it's old news already. But if I gotta choose between believing them or you on something like this, I'm going with you, the man in the trenches.

Try this one. What bugs me most about playing in cover bands is how a lot of the parts get schlepped through, like they don't matter, and like "close enough" is good enough. Well, sometimes it is. But sometimes the originals are constructed with a great deal of specificity, and it's that specificity, not that it's such a great song, that sometimes goes a long way towards making for a great record. Now, not too many cats want to take the time to learn this shit exactly just to play weddings and shit, & I sure understand that, believe me, but just as a matter of musicianship and personal pride, I do think that if you're going to make the money, then you should respect the music, or at least respect the part(s) of it that call for respect, which in some cases is the individual parts of a classic production where the arrangement/production is at least as integral to the overall mojo of the record as the song and/or the singing. I mean, on a great Motown side like "Ain't No Mountain...", it ain't exactly a garage band jamming their way through the changes, if you know what I mean. You got cats playing parts, and playing tem quite specifically, and quite well. And you also got Marvin & Tammi. Not a problem with any of that. The only thing worse than playing a cliched but nevertheless greaat song for the 500,001 time is to play it badly and or wrong. Why not just wear a sign that says "Not only am I a whore, I'm a lousy whore"? For those of us who take at least some pop music seriously in terms of arrangement and production, of conscious choices being made to effect a highly specific intended end, a resource like this like this is akin to studying the score for a classical piece along w/the record, which as anybody who's effectively done that will tell you can, and often does, open up your ears to the specifics of a piece just about as quick as anything. Sure, not everybody needs this level of detail, especially people who listen for entirely or mostly for the satisfaction of pure emotional engagement. But for those of us who enjoy, and actually have a need to experience, the taking apart of something to see how it's put together, well hey. this sure as hell beats trying to decipher a final mix that's often been glazed over with all the reverb and eq and such.

We do need the eggs...

Multitrask!

http://sp-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=1575&...e3cc055c326aa4a Shit, my kids know all about this stuff, but it's kinda new to me (so yeah, I'm even further behind the technology curve than I already thought I was...). Cats take a sampling machine and break down a classic "pop" record into it's component parts. No doubt intended for sampling purposes, but if you really want to get inside a record and see exactly what's happening, w/o having to listen through the mix and such, this is freakin' great! The Marvin Gaye vocal tracks alone are worth the effort... Not sure if this counts as a violation of the O-Board Blog Rule or not, I can kinda see it going either way, but I think this is more educational than recreational. However, if the moderators disagree, I understand. But check out Marvin on "Ain't No Mountain..." DAMN!

And again!