Stealing the Music

[Sylph]

OK, let's say that Timbaland stole (some would say sampled) Warda Al Jazairia's song Batwannes Beek (I Desire You) for Aaliyah's Don't Know What To Tell Ya. For Aaliyah he sampled Syrian diva Mayada El Hennawi's song Alouli ansa. Jay Z's Big Pimpin samples a song called Khosara by the famous Egyptian Abdel Halim Hafez.

Mariah Carey is known for several court cases for copyright infringement and also for stealing her own songs.

Madonna's song Erotica is taken from Fairouz' Alyawm Olliqa, traditional Arab Christian hymn...

Does anyone know how many measures exactly make a musical theft?

[Ryan]

As long as proper credit is given, it's not really theft.

When you sample, you shouldn't necessarily just copy the song. I don't mind taking maybe a riff or a beat, and then re-recreating music around that, but taking the entire song and just adding one or two beats over it is quite frankly sad. If that's the case, then just remake the damn song. IMO, It shows how little originality the producer has when doing the song.

Then there's sampling the melody (which I'm a big fan of). Melody sampling is very popular (Beyonce does it all the damn time ....but she annoys me so, lol).

[Sylph]

In one case, Timbaland didn't credit the composer at all, and in the other he credited the fake one. There's your theft. But in this case, I think it's really a theft because the whole song is built around the same melodic motif.

What did she sample?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Erotica isn't the first Madonna song you'd find that hymm sampled in. It first appeared on her song 'The Beast Within', which is available on the Justify My Love maxi-single. The song is basically Madonna reciting passages from The Book of Revelations with the Justify My Love's backing track (a more middle-eastern version mind you) over it with the Alyawm Olliqa sample somewhere in the song. Madonna must've liked it and kept it for Erotica, though the original demo for that song is quite different from what we now know as 'Erotica.'

Justify My Love is my favorite US Madonna maxi-single. LOL!

Hear it here:

[Ryan]

Before I begin, "interpolation" is to sample a melody sung by someone, but recording it as yourself. Different from sampling, where they use an existing melody and don't record it as themselves (kinda like Kanye West's "Golddigga")

On her debut album...."Dangerously In Love" she sampled the following:

1. "Crazy in Love" samples the riff from The Chi-Lites' 1970 "Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)"

2. "Naughty Girl" contains an interpolation from Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby"

3. "Be Without You" Contains an interpolation from Bootsy's Rubber Band's "I'd Rather Be with You" and also samples parts from from "Strawberry Letter 23" written and performed by Shuggie Otis.

4. "That's How You Like It" samples lyrics from DeBarge's "I Like It"

5. "Gift From A Virgo" samples muysic from "Rainy Day" written by Shuggie Otis

On the song she did with Jay-Z, "Bonnie & Clyde 03," Contains an interpolation from "If I Was Your Girlfriend" by Prince, and a sample from 2Pac's "Me and My Girlfriend"

On her second album "B'Day"....

"Upgrade U" samples Betty Wright's 1968 "Girls Can't Do What the Guys Do"

"Resentment" samples Curtis Mayfield's 1972 "Think (Instrumental)", from the Superfly soundtrack.

"Suga Mama" samples Jake Wade's "Searching for Soul"

[Sylph]

Thank you, Ryan!

On the positive side of Timbaland's sampling - he introduced the Middle-Eastern instrumentarium into Western music (eg. the oud heard in Timberlakes' What Goes Around..., the sitar in Xscape's My Secret remix, tabla in Missy Elliott's Get Ur Freak On). Then everybody copied it.

To me Warda's and Mayada's intro's (from which the songs were sampled) sound much better, because they are heavily orchestrated and use Arabic instruments so well. But I hate the songs, and they last looong: 11 minutes and 14 minutes, I think.

But what is puzzling is - how did Timbaland find these Arabic songs? OK, Abdel Halim Hafez was a megastar in Egypt in his heyday, but Mayada El Hennawi's song is from 1994. Can someone explain this?

[Sylph]

And I intentionally mentioned Madonna knowing you would weigh in! Do you have that CD? What do the liner notes say?

And Fairouz:

http://videoguru.org/video.php?vidid=DwfDI...ls+from+fairouz

[EricMontreal22]

I love The Beast Within--far more than Justify My love lol. I don't think that's an example of Madonna stelaing though because of the source--Ray of Light, Dont' Tell Me and a few others lyrically existed as other songs before Madonna redid them to largely new music but they do get proper writing credit.

Most of the examples I can think of come from my love of really cheasy disposable europop but here's one

Howabout 1991-92 British Manufactured Girl group Boy Krazy (who oddly had more success with this song in N America than in Europe) and their song That's What Love Can Do? Written and produced by the UK UBERproducers Stock/Aitken/Waterman (aka SAW they had like 20 top 10 hits in the Uk from 1985-1991 each year even though on some of their cheasy greatness ever took off in N America--among their "creations/discoveries" were Kylie Minogue--they wrote and produced all of her first four albums--Rick Astley, Bananarama, Dead or Alive, Hazell Dean, Mel and Kim, Sinitta, Sonia, Jason Donovan, one of DOnna Summer's come back albums, etc etc--all had a very very similar sound).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERQM11osFac is the video

Then compare it to a few years later, the Berman Bros (a producing act who helped write/propduce/create The Real McCoy, Amber's first hits liek This Is Your Night, etc) and their girl group SheMoves had this song around 1993-94 (which was at least a minor hit here in Canada). NO writing credits shared or credit given to SAW but there's no way the Berman Bros didn't know one of SAW's big hits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrze9-niE3c

"On the positive side of Timbaland's sampling - he introduced the Middle-Eastern instrumentarium into Western music (eg. the oud heard in Timberlakes' What Goes Around..., the sitar in Xscape's My Secret remix, tabla in Missy Elliott's Get Ur Freak On). Then everybody copied it. "

Timbaland introduced the Sitar to Western pop? you mean like before the Beatles or even something like Kylie Minogue's 1997 Cowboy Style? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUT4YnTdNZc from ten years back

[EricMontreal22]

With Erotica she should pay I think since it sounds liek she used the actual recording just pitched up, tho even back in 1992 sampling laws were iffy about crediting and paying. the fact that the actual music though is traditional was prob why they thought they could get away with it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-NdjuAl6PQ this guy has a number of interesting videos on youtube about where dance songs got their samples from and how used--his ones for Daft Punk are especially fascinating as a fan of old school disco and of D Punk

[EricMontreal22]

One more odd one that prob will be bette rknown to the Brits here--this was eventually settled out of court:

The minor UK 1975 disco/soul hit Linda Carr - Livewire http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H9XXeipxU8

Was said to be the basis--and stolen for use in M People's great 90s dance classic One Night in Heaven

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80PDPRm1JeM

[Sylph]

No, I didn't say that. Re-read it.

And it wasn't the Beatles either.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Ravi Shankar? He was the Beatles main influence when they started experimenting with classical Indian music, thought Shankar isn't Indian classical per se.

[Sylph]

I posted a superfresh Arabic song in What Are You Listening To? I'm loving it!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Me too, but my favorite mix of Justify MY Love is the William Orbit Remix. Orbit's 12" mix of Erotica is also my favorite version of that song. Madonna performed both versions on her 1993 Girlie Show Tour.

[bellcurve]

Recently read on YouTube that Robbie Nevil's C'est La Vie beat may have been stolen or "heavily influenced" from another 80's One Hit Wonder. Will find the artist/album later.

Mariah was accused of stealing the beat from "The Best of My Love" for "Emotions." The songwriter won that one and got compensated.

The girls from Xscape got their beat stolen from "One of those Love Songs" for Mariah's "Thank God I Found You."