November 25, 2008 by Joshua Ellis
2) Sampling - This pseudo-art makes shooting heroin and doing pushups look like composing The Rite of Spring. To make matters worse, sampling has the unique value-add of being able to ruin the original genius of the source material. It’s like music AIDS that songs can randomly catch after you know and love them.
Heh. (From a STREET BONERS and TV CARNAGE post about how photography is for jerkoffs.)
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Category: Culture, Music, Quote Of The Day
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My name is Joshua Ellis. I'm a writer, web designer / developer / consultant, musician and DJ who currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.
I am a former columnist for the Las Vegas CityLife weekly newspaper, the co-founder and creative director for the now-defunct online indie music store Mperia, and current content director for Mojo Republik.
I am actively seeking freelance work and contracts in the area of web/graphic design, development, information architecture and online strategy consulting, particularly in the area of new media.
I’m not so down on sampling, and I think it has its place. Sampling is the only method I know where an artist can take an important, but nearly-forgotten musical “meme” and recycle it back into the zeitgeist, relayering it into a fresh and listenable iteration. Sampling is an artifact of the digital age and was almost unheard of before digitally-recorded music. Thus it’s easy to dismiss sampling as a facile artifice, something like empty calories masquerading as art. But in its best examples, sampling produces shit that I enjoy listening to — even meaningful music. And so I think it’s elitist to write it off completely. Like I said, it has its role, and since it’s here to stay, we may as well consign ourselves to living with it. But always treat it with a critical ear, and a bit of skepticism.
Comment by Joe T. — November 26, 2008 @ 3:15 am