Listen to This!

I was actually going to write about Sleater-Kinney for this round of Music Pix. They're one of my favourite bands, and I was keen on eulogizing the trio (who will call it quits on August 12th) for The Tyee. But then I read Graham Preston's Music Pix for the week of July 14th, and I changed my mind.

If there is one thing about the Internet, it's that it's easy to get goaded into responding to other people's ridiculous commentary. Things that most people would let go in real life end up spurring lengthy debates on ye olde World Wide Web, and I'm not about to pretend I'm above that. So, consider this a response to the comment on Graham's piece that, "sampling is not creating, but stealing." I can't believe such a comment would come from a reader of such a progressive publication. If you can open your mind to Parecon and consensus-model decision making, it shouldn't be that difficult to jettison a belief that a Theremin is the most novel innovation that could make it into a popular music recording.

Recontextualizing snippets of other recordings to create new pieces of art has been in practice since the 1940s. It has some roots in Jamaican dub recordings. The Beatles - y'know, those no-talent hacks from Liverpool - composed the bulk of "Revolution #9" from tape loops they made after culling the vaults at EMI. Stevie Wonder, Brian Eno, and even Miles Davis (among many others) also employed various methods of sampling extensively on several of their albums. Now, of course, there is its omnipresence in the rap game and modern electronic compositions, but sampling's also been employed by everyone from Beck to Sheryl Crow, Nine Inch Nails to Madonna, and Bjork to the Verve.

In recent years, with legal battles over fair use heating up and the spread of inexpensive (or bootlegged) sound manipulation software and media over the Internet, there have been quite a few recordings that have turned the world's attention to the art of sampling.

Two years ago, Danger Mouse (who's now known as one half of Gnarls Barkley) unleashed the Grey Album. The record married a capella tracks from Jay-Z's Black album with backing tracks built from samples of the Beatles' White album. While there were instantly recognizable guitar licks and vocal samples, many of the resulting backing tracks were painstakingly built, one drum beat and one note at a time, melding the Fab Four's best - yes, best - album with Sean Carter's "retirement" record in seemingly unimaginable ways.

Despite calls of "sacrilege" by some Beatles faithfuls, Sir Paul McCartney is reportedly a fan (he even performed with Jay-Z on the Grammys after the album's release). And, while Beatles' catalogue owners EMI were less impressed, one would imagine that the soundscapes created from the individual snippets -- distorted, pitched up or down, layered, and otherwise altered -- would've made a studio visionary like John Lennon smile a bit.

More recently, Girl Talk has been causing a buzz with the release of his latest full-length, Night Ripper. Gregg Gillis keeps things more intact on a record that's closer to a DJ set than an overly-intricate reworking of the base material, but it may be the perfect music for an MTV-addled generation. The continuous remix mashes up countless songs from seemingly disparate parts of the musical spectrum to amazing effect, creating 42 minutes of frenetic party music: it's a glorious celebration of the excess of modern popular music.

Pop "the grey album" into any search engine and you'll be able to find a download of the record in its entirety. Alternately, you can download a torrent of the Jay-Z Construction Set, and you'll have all the tools to make your own remix.

Download "Hold Up" and "Bounce That" from Night Ripper at Illegal Art.

Quinn Omori is a regular Tyee Music Pix contributor and writes the Vancouver music blog From Blown Speakers.