Kanye West's weird prog obsession

I just listened to his new album today, and it's actually surprisingly good.  I really enjoyed it and respect him for sampling prog. Blind haters should stop arguing that he somehow is disrespecting KC by sampling them. Listen to the album with an open mind first!

NPJ: No, you don't have to pay for sampling. In fact, if you sample someone's song, they have to pay you.

Edited by Textbook - December 23 2010 at 04:44

After all this discussion I'd really like to know whether any of these Rap erm.... artists? ever pay any royalties for the stuff they erm.... lifted?

I think that would make quite a difference. There's a whole world of difference between nicking stuff and paying tribute. Or doesn't that apply in Rap-Land?

stonebeard wrote: Tapfret wrote: I get it. If any of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale are played, its just like sampling and if you think you have not stolen from someone else you are a hypocrite. Awesome. I think I will go "write" Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band. It will be mine because I recorded it on my computer and pressed the play button.It will be exactly the same as if I got an ensemble together and learned the songs and practiced them for hours before we got it sounding ok. 1) I have no idea what you mean by the first paragraph. It is being argued that sampling is the same as playing a classical riff on guitar. Essentially sample theft apologists are attempting to say that playing a recording on a playback device is the same as playing a sequence of notes on a guitar. So why a sequence? Why not 1 note? Been done before. Same duration, same dynamic. 2) I think you're trying, first of all, to rant against sampling by comparing it to copying an entire song, not altering it, and just releasing it under a different name. Really? Who dictates what the cut off point is? I decide when it starts and when it stops. Its art. I made it. I guess I should have a beat over it with a big 40 hz bass drum every 4 beats.  Uh...tell me where that happens. Kid Rock using Sad But True in its entirety and jabbering some nonsense over it, though one could argue no more nonsense than the original lyrics. Most sampling is a melodic hook used in an entirely different genre and context, more often than not combined with an original melody or song by the sampler (re: Kanye). Or the whole song could be composed of samples, but not just one sample. A dozen or so. (re: Endtroducing.....). It takes a lot of skill to do something like that and have it sound fresh and cool. What's fresh and cool is what is dictated by major media outlets. I listen to new music, check my playlist. Mainstream "fresh and cool' is not something that I suddenly started loathing because I am old. I was a young guy when the first sample heads were mucking about, it was equally awful then.   Additionally, I have Fruity Loops, I have made songs from it using samples, both my own and snipped from others music, it is not hard, it is outrageously easy. Is it fresh and cool? Me or you don't decide that. Individually yes, but what gets mass produced, no. There are millions of people out there that can do exactly what Kanye does, probably better, they just don't get to play the game. Secondly, you seem to have an idea that electronic music is simply inferior to acoustic music. Weird. Yes, it is weird that you have made that correlation from anything I have said. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Symphonic_Library When you have this and a good notation program, humans are all but obsolete.

I will never get that sampling thing.


What's the point of sampling?  Play your damn thing on a instrument. Or if you can't play an instrument, push a few buttons, do a few mouse clicks, program a synth, drum-machine, sequencer, computer. Be creative. I'm fine when people use digital sampling keyboard when they can not afford grand piano, but sampling pieces of another song? Loop and patterns?  No thanks. Fine with sampling non-musical sounds: ambient noises, famous speech, movie lines. But when a musician is sampling another musician it's like a half-stealing. I guess you can get creative in that process too, but I just don't like it. Besides, most of the samples sound as a half-baked attempt to make cash on a already known/already written hook. Just one of the reason I never like sample-based musical styles.


*rant mode off

Tapfret wrote: I get it. If any of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale are played, its just like sampling and if you think you have not stolen from someone else you are a hypocrite. Awesome. I think I will go "write" Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band. It will be mine because I recorded it on my computer and pressed the play button.It will be exactly the same as if I got an ensemble together and learned the songs and practiced them for hours before we got it sounding ok.

Nope, but you've done just as much 'stealing' in each case.

Maybe you should go listen to a song in question. If you call DJ Shadow or Girl Talk theft, you'll still be wrong, but at least you'll have an idea of what's going on.

EDIT: It's still composition. Only instead of using notes as your building blocks, you use samples of others songs.


Edited by Equality 7-2521 - December 22 2010 at 14:50

Tapfret wrote: I get it. If any of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale are played, its just like sampling and if you think you have not stolen from someone else you are a hypocrite. Awesome. I think I will go "write" Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band. It will be mine because I recorded it on my computer and pressed the play button.It will be exactly the same as if I got an ensemble together and learned the songs and practiced them for hours before we got it sounding ok.

1) I have no idea what you mean by the first paragraph.

2) I think you're trying, first of all, to rant against sampling by comparing it to copying an entire song, not altering it, and just releasing it under a different name. Uh...tell me where that happens. Most sampling is a melodic hook used in an entirely different genre and context, more often than not combined with an original melody or song by the sampler (re: Kanye). Or the whole song could be composed of samples, but not just one sample. A dozen or so. (re: Endtroducing.....). It takes a lot of skill to do something like that and have it sound fresh and cool. secondly, you seem to have an idea that electronic music is simply inferior to acoustic music. Weird.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Symphonic_Library

When you have this and a good notation program, humans are all but obsolete.

Tapfret wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: Tapfret wrote: Yes, being derivative and being an outright thief are very different. Playing an instrument and using a passage from a classical composer is far different than pressing a button connected to a digital recording device that plays the exact recording of someone else's composition.  What exactly is the difference? One 'theft' occurs with an instrument, the other with a computer. It's just a difference in means. One is right and the other wrong just because people here like prog and dislike rap. Just because you don't get the difference does not mean there is not one.

Since we're getting really close to just declaring sampling lack talent, I'll just dispel that before it becomes an issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endtroducing

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Tapfret wrote: Yes, being derivative and being an outright thief are very different. Playing an instrument and using a passage from a classical composer is far different than pressing a button connected to a digital recording device that plays the exact recording of someone else's composition.  What exactly is the difference? One 'theft' occurs with an instrument, the other with a computer. It's just a difference in means. One is right and the other wrong just because people here like prog and dislike rap.

Just because you don't get the difference does not mean there is not one.

A musician playing a classical piece is like a painter painting a portrait of my Christmas and putting the painting in his leaving room. A rapper with a recorded sample in his song is like coming over and taking the tree to put in his living room.


Edited by Tapfret - December 22 2010 at 13:53

I wonder how many people here have actually heard the album. A rapper uses a 4 second sample of a prog song in one song on an entire album and suddenly he's a parasite thief with no talent. Nice.

I do think it's curious that the best songs on his album are the one's with prominet samples though (Blame Game, Power, Lost in the World). Though All of the Lights is still fantastic.

It sags a lot in the middle though.

Also, I suspect very few prog fans here have put the p***y in a sarcophagus.