Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

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I upvoted you because I think you raise a valid point, but I still disagree. Personally, I know where you're coming from; I make electronic music as a hobby, but I can't bring myself to use samples because then I feel like it's not me any more.

However, I don't see it as theft, any more than I see a production of a Shakespeare play as theft. Stealing is when you're dishonest about the source of your raw material and represent it as your own creation. An interesting juxtaposition of known material is a commentary in itself, regardless of whether you like it; and the guy's career is as a producer, not as a musician or composer. For that matter, both Mozart and Bach were regarded by some as mere hacks, appropriating or accepting tunes from others and applying mere technique to arrive at elaborate (but not fundamentally complex) arrangements.

I'm unsure why you seem so personally offended by this, to the point of finding it indecent and dishonorable. I've been blatantly ripped off by a (book) publisher in the past, and it made me mad, but not to the extent of rejecting an entire branch of creative technique. Can you explain, without the invective?

I guess there's a distinction between remaking music and copying it (bit-for-bit) that people aren't seeing. Or, they see, and don't care. Now, if you make the 2000th cover of "Yesterday" and sell it, that's one thing. If you take the original 2 minute recording of "Yesterday", add yourself belching on top of it, and sell it as your "own", then you're a thief and an artistic wrecker.

I think this comes down to opinion. The principle is firm, but the disgust is sometimes lacking. When this little gem was released,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJePNFkkvFk

...the outrage was vicious and near-universal. DM is doing the exact same thing, and I would argue, to a much, much greater extent, because he isn't contributing, you know, actual music, like the above recording.

This seems like a matter of taste. Certain people were apoplectic about the Kenny G. But tons of people actually loved that Kenny G thing (look at the youtube comments). Scary, but true. The Grey Album seems to draw the most ire from Beatles fans who consider their recordings sacrosanct. Personally I liked the 99 problems remix better than either of the two original songs. Related, I'd rather listen to a Girl Talk track before I'd listen to any one of the songs he samples...

You bring up some good points. But associating Danger Mouse with Girl Talk is doing Danger Mouse a HUGE disservice.

I thought the other way around, but to each his own... >:)

I guess there's a distinction between remaking music and copying it (bit-for-bit) that people aren't seeing.

Define it.

Yeah that's a tough one. I have a musician friend who was obsessed with figuring out what equipment the neptunes used on certain songs and then remaking the instrumental part of the tracks. to my ears, they were pretty much indistinguishable from the originals. what's the distinction?

I guess it doesn't seem too hard to define, but maybe the confusion is philosophical. When I say bit-for-bit, that's what I mean. When I say "remake" it involves using your own voice and instruments to make a new recording. That's actually been the default through all history. There's no "original recordings" for Beethoven's music. If you buy a pop song's sheet music, never having heard the song, that's a very traditional kind of making music, and completely appropriate.

But really, philosophically. Here's an original recording (couldn't find the studio version):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzZHmHqEE7k

Okay, and here's a great remake. I say great because it's so completely original at the same time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVuh1Ymve2I

And here's a ripoff (sort of. The sampled parts were paid for), which you probably already guessed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx3m4e45bTo

I really like that song, but that guy added very little to the original remake, so to speak.

Here is a link to a more original recording.

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/The_Last_Time/14716915

If that second video is were the Verve stole their sample then I think there's was sufficiently different as to be new. It wasn't a real sample, not like "brush your shoulders off" ...I just heard that for the first time because of this story. I was getter mad just listening to it.

The distinction is the amount of work, energy, creativity and risk required to produce them. One requires a lot of it, the other requires clicking a button.

You're overestimating the amount of effort and creativity it takes to play a song someone else wrote, and underestimating the effort and creativity involved in the kind of sampling Danger Mouse did on the Grey Album.

Kenny G definitely had the easier job among those two examples.

You raise an interesting point here - why is Kenny G's clarinet so insufferably cheesy to so many (including me), but Danger Mouse doing the same thing with a drum machine is hailed as a visionary (though I'm personally indifferent).

I think the difference may be that while DM is no different, his contributions are at least contemporary; that doesn't make it better, just more fashionable. Clarinets used to be fashionable, and Kenny g's stock-in-trade is musical nostalgia: so nostalgia^2 is not an improvement to most people.

On the other hand, this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ9iNoTKMAs (same song mashed up with Radiohead) presents the same melody in a different but interesting harmonic context - that is, in the same key but with different chords behind it. To me that's innovative, although I don't personally like Radiohead. On the other hand Kenny G's clarinet vampings seem completely unoriginal - as someone who uses sequencers because I'm poor at actually playing bass or piano, he's much better than me at operating his instrument, but isn't doing anything remotely novel with that ability (like introducing new rhythmic or harmonic tension, he's just echoing what's already there with a clarinet).

Although we disagree, I think your points are interesting because I find myself wondering about things like this when I reach a site that mashes up (say) Craigslist with Google - is there really anything original going on here, or is it just digital glue, something the browser will do by itself in a few years?

Kenny G plays soprano saxophone, not clarinet. Insufferable either way, though.

D'oh. Thank you.

I guess I'm just pragmatic about these things, but I find it difficult to think of any sort remix, mash-up or cover that could be done that would make someone an "artistic wrecker". Even your example of belching on top of "Yesterday", while not palatable to most people, perhaps, is still definitely art. It comes down to a matter of taste, not a matter of art. I would argue that this isn't even a particularly recent idea or something unique to music. See: Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917).

As far as it being theft: nobody is going to buy Belching Yesterday under the illusion that they are getting a Beatles recording. There is no lost sale. There may be a possible copyright claim, but I don't think even this is completely cut and dry. Belching Yesterday could win in court as a fair use. You never know...

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