In music, sampling is the practice of capturing segments of existing recordings and including these captured 'samples' in a new work. Graham Poppie, of the band Pop Will Eat Itself, when asked about whether he obtained permission to use samples from the original artists commented as follows: "you could ask somebody and end up paying for something which even the writer at the end of the day may not even recognise if he heard it because you've altered it so much; you've put it in a different context, chopped it up, whatever. So I suppose if you were idealogically sound you would ask... but I guess we aren't idealogically sound." Once a songwriter has written and recorded a song, under the copyright laws of intellectual and artistic property, the song and all parts of it remain the property of the songwriter. Whilst sampling with the approval of the artist is perfectly legal, the original writer of the song often demands a fee for the use of the sample of his/her work. For many years, artists have been using tape loops to augment their music (The Beatles, Yoko Ono, The Beach Boys). However, sampling did not begin in earnest until the 1980s with the advent of rap music in urban black America. Rap artists would play little bits of old soul, motown or gospel records together with a hip hop beat and then rap over the top. As these artists could not afford to pay the fees to licence the works from their original authors, they simply used them illegally. In the late 1980s, playing samples directly from two turntables was superceded by the development of the sampler. The sampler allowed the musician to digitally store small soundbites of songs/ speech/ effects to call up at the press of a button. The rap attitude towards sampling and the advent of the sampler have combined to produce an artistic climate in which building songs from soundbites of other songs is the norm. With the advent of the sampler, techno and dance music has changed from solely keyboard based electronica to a scattergun blast of samples. Contemporary pop music is currently in a state of introspection. The bands of the 1990s are looking to the bands of the 1960s and 1970s for their influences. Oasis hark back to The Beatles, Ocean Colour Scene have delved into their old The Jam collection, Primal Scream have followed the trail blazed by The Rolling Stones and Blur have dredged up a whole lot of Kinks records. These bands tread dangerously close to infringing copyright on the original artists due to the similarities between their work and the originals. However, although their songs are so similar to their influences, no actual music from the originals is used, and thus no actual laws are being broken. On the other hand, Artists who use samples, are placing themselves right in the line of fire from the owners of the original works. It is an ironic situation, whereby music is allowed to drag itself back into the mid to late 1960s, but to go forward through dance music and the inevitable use of samples is actually illegal. In the mid 1980s, the sampler was prohibitively expensive, but by the end of the eighties, it was within reach of musicians, and as such was put to use. Two bands of the late eighties focussed on the use of samples as a means by which to give both structure and substance to their music. Pop Will Eat Itself whose motto was: "Sample It, Loop It, Fuck It and Eat It" used huge quantities of samples for their songs, taking cues from films, television, video, radio, and other artists. However, following the transfer of a large sum of money, most of their samples were legally released by their former owners, and as such they were free to use the samples that they were given permission for. The KLF however, came from a different perspective. The KLF, whose name stood for The Kopyright (sic) Liberation Foundation, were two eccentric Scotsmen Bill Drummond and Billy Caughty. The KLF registered themselves as a business in 1989, used a huge number of samples, including borrowing the chords to a few Garry Glitter songs and recorded one album and six singles. The first three singles released all went to number one in the UK (3AM Eternal, Last Train To Trancecentral and What Time Is Love) and the album reached the top ten. The duo recieved their royalty cheques (for many millions of pounds), then declared their band bankrupt and disappeared from view. Because The KLF (the registered company) could not be sued because of it bankruptcy status, Bill and Bill got away scot-free. Their record company was sued by the owners of the originals that the samples originated from, and to cover the costs, they released the band's last three singles following the band's disappearance. The KLF intended their experience to be a artistic statement, as one year later the emerged from obscurity in Scotland for an art exhibition. Security for the event was very tight with only forty British journalists being permitted to attend the event in the middle of a cow paddock. The centrepiece of their exhibition was called 'Nailed To A Plank' and featured one million pounds (approx. A$2.2mil.) nailed to a very large piece of wood. The second exhibit involved another one million pounds and was called 'Up In Smoke'... Sampling is the musical essence of post modernism. The gathering together of many different styles of music, popular culture and commodity all within the one piece of music. Many of the most popular bands in the world rely heavily upon sampling for the content of their music; Chemical Brothers use a constant stream of samples from the ethereal harmonies the The Dead Can Dance and My Bloody Valentine, to the hardcore rap of Schooly D and Lionrock, The Prodigy base their music on hip hop beats and wailing industrial-like samples. Pop Will Eat Itself Discography Pop Will Eat Itself Sample Listing A (Very) Brief History of Techno
| The Simpsons | Ulysses | John Wayne | Facial Recognition | Post Structuralism | 1950's Pulp Novels |
| Copyright | Sampling | Pulp Fiction | Salvador Dali | Rhizomes | Post Modernism |
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