Whilst I don't arrive back to my trusty laptop in the northern hemisphere until the 1st, I've got a couple of days of free internet access and so thought of relieving myself of a few thoughts that have been bugging me lately.

In particular, it's about the use of sampling.

Now, sampling is an integral part of most modern music production. It's an art mastered through the genres of hip-hop to the deepest techno. I have no prejudice against the use of sampling, as up until recently all artists made extremely creative use of the original sample, taking it out from an obscure record or genre and looping/chopping/reversing/splitting and so recontextualising the sample into a whole new musical creation.

A prime example of this is no less than Dj Shadow's album Endtroducing, which is quite brilliantly made solely out of samples.

Now to understand where the current controversy over samples is coming from watch this:


Now this is the sort of creative procrastination that annoys me so much about modern day popular music. Just pure laziness on the artists behalf and a lust for success. My opinion anyway.

Now here are a few more tracks using samples. I think it's fairly clear what my opinion is on the matter but I'll leave them all for you to decide.



Obviously I have an infatuation with Justice, but that one's just to show another effective use of samples, and so that I can post some gratuitous Justice. Also the original song is quite a cool italo-disco tune.


This one brought a tear to my eye...



Fairly obvious where these two were sampled from. Serial offenders.