Hear a second or two of Vernon Burch’s “Get Up,” and you’re back in 1990; of “Balance and Rehearsal” from the JBL sound-test album Session, and you’re back in 1999; of Eddie Johns’ “More Spell on You,” and you’re back in 2001. What, you don’t know any of those songs? Perhaps you’re more familiar with them in a different form: chopped up, pitched up or down, and looped over and over again in the songs “Groove Is in the Heart” by Deee-Lite, “Praise You” by Fatboy Slim, and “One More Time” by Daft Punk. None of those hits would be conceivable without the clips they incorporate from older recordings, those named here and a variety of others besides.
Three and a half decades ago, few ordinary listeners would have understood how a song could be constructed out of other songs; today, most of us know it as the technology and art of sampling. We tend to associate it with hip-hop, and indeed, last year we featured here on Open Culture Tracklib’s video on the most iconic hip-hop samples of the past half-century.
But the same channel has also put out the video above, which similarly breaks down the constituent sonic ingredients of electronic dance hits from “Groove Is in the Heart” onward. If you’ve ever wanted to know what, exactly, went into Snap!‘s “Rhythm Is a Dancer,” Moby’s “Porcelain,” Skrillex’s “First of the Year,” or James Hype and Miggy Dela Rosa’s “Ferrari,” this is your chance.
Those over a certain age may recognize all the titles of the songs included on the first twenty or so years of the video’s timeline, and almost none thereafter. But they may well know the bodies of work from which they sample, including those of Aaron Neville, Freeez, Brian Wilson, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Melba Moore. For the last couple of generations of listeners, seeking out the sources of a sample in a favorite song has become a reliable method of discovering the music of past eras. By the same token, listeners already well-versed in the music of those eras can hear it anew in the tracks to which kids are currently dancing, working out, or simply “vibing.” Whatever your generation, once you hear how “Get Ready for This” was constructed, you’ll never experience a basketball game quite the same way again.
via Kottke
Related content:
A Brief History of Sampling: From the Beatles to the Beastie Boys
The Most Iconic Hip-Hop Sample of Every Year (1973–2023)
Hear the Evolution of Electronic Music: A Sonic Journey from 1929 to 2019
How the Fairlight CMI Synthesizer Revolutionized Music
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
