I was an unreconstructed tool about sampling when it first entered the mainstream. ‘It’s not music!’ I wailed, simply ripping off other peoples creativity and passing it off as your own. In my defence, I was 13 and didn’t know my arse from my elbow musically. I think two things turned me. One was Oasis. much as I enjoyed them, it was pretty apparent they were sampling of a sort. Just because they played the stuff themselves didn’t make it any different to someone taking a loop of a track from someone else. I decided I’d be pretty hypocritical to like them despite being musical magpies and dislike others for doing the same thing (and in a much more honest fashion, frankly.) The other was ‘Cop Killer’ by Ice-T, still one of the greatest rap songs ever and the best use of a John Bonham drum part, ever, and that includes Led Zepplin. As I grew up (well, as much as I ever will) I realised that, as was most things, there was no absolutes; it all came down to the fact that there was good sampling and bad sampling and a whole spectrum in-between.
So I’m open minded about it. And now we come to Kid Rock. Kid Rock’s new ‘song’ ‘Summer’ takes two of the greatest pieces of modern music and hogties them, pisses on their prone bodies and then anally violates them with a a faeces-flecked rusty pole. He has taken the piano from Warren Zevon’s ‘Werewolves of London’ and the guitar part from ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ by the Skynrd and put them together. And I mean that literally. No cleverness, no strange loops, no new territory discovered. It is exactly like having two players going simultaneously, merely putting one song on as you put the other off, then repeating. ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ this is not. Over this, the somnambulant rapper does his usual Good Ol’ Southern Boy shit, which was scarcely believable when he started and is now as ludicrous as Richard Madeley in his Ali G suit.
It is the worst musical sample since Vanilla Ice, who at least had the excuse of being a pioneer, of sort. It’s a cynical throw of the dice from a musically bankrupt fame-fiend with an ego proportionally inverse to his talent. And do you know why I really hate it? because every time it starts I think ‘yay! Werewolves of London!’ only to be cruelly disappointed, leaving my spirit ripped asunder. I feel akin to fat lad being told Gregg’s is out of pasties. It’s a shallow, empty feeling. Allied to that, using Warren Zevon in a song celebrating dumbass Southern mores is incredibly inappropriate choice. He infamously hated all that stuff, indeed wrote a blistering attack on it in a song called ‘Play It All Night Long’ (although it should be pointed out Zevon was proud of his Southern roots, he hated the Bud, belt buckle and boogie mentality he felt held it back.)
So damn you Kid Rock. I’m now firmly on Tommy Lee’s side and I hope he smacks your ratty scumbag face hard the next time he sees you.
Filed under: General Stuff | Tagged: ice-t, kid rock, rap, rock, sampling, sweet home alabama, Warren Zevon
Abso-fuckin-lutely. I want to hear Warren Zevon, frankly.
On a better note, the sample of the incredible bongo band’s “Apache” by grand master flash remains one of the best moments in hip hop, IMHO.
sampling ?
bag of shite.
I should qualify the above remark……..lets take nuclear weapons for example, nothing wrong with them per se…but in the hands of idiots, well, better tighten your sphincter ; or how about religion , again , nothing really wrong with it – if thats your thang – but again ,once the bozo`s seize control of the available global franchise opportunities – armagideon time .Or how about the internet ? any malcontent can……..ok, thats not such a good example ……..
so anyway,
sampling ?
bag of shite….almost , but not quite, always
It depends on how they do it. Is there imagination? Is there flair?
For instance, if someone recorded the sound of them hitting Choad Kroeger of Nickelback over the head with a baseball bat and then looped it into a 3 minute tune, I’d give them kudos.
nickelback , they are supremely awful arent they ; I think so many of those type of bands realise their awfulness but just get on with it, nickelback – I suspect – seem to believe they are special.
Take a look at the top picture on their web page as they gaze to middle distance like lobotomised mormons.
Sampling can indeed be great: Janet Jackson sampling Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ always gets me! Sad though that may be.
Never see Janet and Michael in the same room, it’s all I’m saying.
Oh, and I think Nickelback genuinely believe they are the 21st Century Zep.
nickelback – if westlife tried to re-invent themselves as a grungeband nickelback would be the result.
There’s a girl at my work who loves Nickelback, and tries to pass them off as a viable alternative to the rest of the proles who like Amy Winehouse/Adele/whatever-pish-pop-music-idiots-like-at-the-moment. She can’t accept that they are the fast food equivelant of hammering nails into your own balls as opposed to the soft metal pish that they are. She used to like what is now known as happy hardcore, ie music for neds to take E to. And drive their Vauxhall Nova’s to. Y’know, Halford’s heroes. I like this girl, but at the same time, would like to take a nail gun to her.
Some people are beyond our help, only death would help them. She actually thinks that Metallica are good, too.
I despair, fellow ELM-ers.
Metallica WERE good, but they aren’t anymore.
Nickelback just make me sad. The goatees, the bad hair, the fact that they look like they smell….it’s just not on.