If you grew up in the 70s and 80s, lots of today’s music may sound kind of familiar. Big reason for that is the abundant use of samples in contemporary music. Whether it’s lifting a few beats and choice riffs or a complete ripoff of the tune with new lyrics rapped over the music, much of the music you listen to today probably wouldn’t exist or be popular if it wasn’t for the art of the remix.
Remixing is the art of combining or editing existing music to create something new. Not to be confused with the term rip off which requires far less talent and vision. I never really gave much thought about the whole thing other than to wax on about how some of today’s “artists” lack the same kind of talent that earlier artists had and with the use of technology, many people are getting pretty famous that don’t really deserve to be.
What will become of music twenty years from now ? Where will new samples come from if much of today’s music is already sample rich with stuff someone else already did ? What will be the source for new samples?
Kirby Ferguson, a New York based filmmaker has given it much thought and is working on a four part project all about the history and art of the remix. The project is called, Everything is a Remix and you can check out Part 1 in the series on Kirby’s blog by clicking the link above or the picture of the bitchin’ turntable below to go to his blog to view the video. If you like what you see, help the guy out.
