Stop calling yourself a "PRODUCER".

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I'm a big fan, too. But everything from "Whole Lotta Love" to "Black Mountain Side" to"Dazed and Confused" are blatant rip-offs from other artists. And I don't mean just lifting old blues tunes
Actually, "Whole Lotta Love" *IS" an old blues tune, originally written by Willie Dixon.

The last thing anybody should be putting up as an example in this subject is any band to come out of the British Invasion. From Zep to the Stones to the Who to the Beatles, they all ripped off the original blues artists from Willie Dixon to Elmore James to Robert Johnson to Cab Calloway to Chuck Berry and made their entire careers out of doing so...until they found mushrooms ;).

G.
 
And who did Zepplin steal it from???

The galloping eighth-sixteen metal beat? That's a good question. It's not a blues rhythm. Maybe Beethoven? He used a kinda similar rhythm in the scherzo in Ninth Symphony, albeit in triple meter . . . :eek:

But I mean Heart, they not only lifted the rhythm, they stole a couple of Bonham's fills note for note. And I don't mean random fills, they were the fills from the same exact tune as the rhythm and guitar riff . . .
 
Actually, "Whole Lotta Love" *IS" an old blues tune, originally written by Willie Dixon.

The last thing anybody should be putting up as an example in this subject is any band to come out of the British Invasion. From Zep to the Stones to the Who to the Beatles, they all ripped off the original blues artists from Willie Dixon to Elmore James to Robert Johnson to Cab Calloway to Chuck Berry and made their entire careers out of doing so...until they found mushrooms ;).

G.

Glen, in Zep's case it's different. They credited THEMSELVES as the writers. And it's not only the old blues tunes that they ripped off. The list is too long to mention, but they directly ripped off songs, riffs and arrangements from other artists, some of them were opening acts on their tours, not old blues artists. And in every case, they listed "Page/Plant" as the writers. They got sued many many times....and lost.

You'd have to watch the couple of YouTube videos to understand what we're talking about. The one that Chile posted just goes from the originals to Zep's rip-offs without commentary. There's another one that does this, but also tells the story of who sued them and how they settled or lost for each rip-off. This is more than just the Stones doing "Oh! Carol" and giving credit to Chuck Berry.

Yes, they even got sued for "Whole Lotta Love" for listing it as a "Page/Plant" tune on the album.
 
The galloping eighth-sixteen metal beat? That's a good question. It's not a blues rhythm. Maybe Beethoven? He used a kinda similar rhythm in the scherzo in Ninth Symphony, albeit in triple meter . . . :eek:

But I mean Heart, they not only lifted the rhythm, they stole a couple of Bonham's fills note for note. And I don't mean random fills, they were the fills from the same exact tune as the rhythm and guitar riff . . .

It's not only the galloping 16ths and the fills. Even the bridge in Barracuda is pretty much the same as the instrumental bridge in "Achille's Last Stand".
 
Yes, they even got sued for "Whole Lotta Love" for listing it as a "Page/Plant" tune on the album.
I wish I still had the original Atlantic vinyl on that, but I'd have sworn they did credit that to Dixon on the album label. I could be wrong.

But that's just the point I was making, Rams; anybody who has a beef about hip hop "stealing" from other artists had better put practically the entire first decade of rock n' roll in the same boat. And the difference between sampling an artist's recording and stealing a written riff or chord progression is not a difference worth highlighting; either way it's taking the artist's work.

I'm not saying it's OK or it's not OK, I'm just saying that there's a lot of hypocracy in rock n' rollers complaining about hip hop samples of rock recordings*.

I'm not all that big on hip hop or modern R&B myself - I'll take classic R&B over the new stuff in a heartbeat, but that's just personal preference only - though there are exceptions that I like quite a bit. But I'm old enough to recognize that most folk who complain about it don't sound any different then my parents generation sounded when they complained about Elvis and the Beatles.

The new generations like hip hop. Get over it. That's how the world turns. In another ten years, Mindset's children will be liking something else we haven't even heard of yet, and he'll be the old man complaining about "these kids these days and their unintelligible music" ;).

G.

*I reserve one personal exception: Nena Cherry's use of samples from "The Pusher" was sacrilege, plain and simple. ;) Yeah, it was a good use of the right song for the right subject, I give it credit for that, but some songs should just be off-limits :p
 
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I wish I still had the original Atlantic vinyl on that, but I'd have sworn they did credit that to Dixon on the album label. I could be wrong.

But that's just the point I was making, Rams; anybody who has a beef about hip hop "stealing" from other artists had better put practically the entire first decade of rock n' roll in the same boat. And the difference between sampling an artist's recording and stealing a written riff or chord progression is not a difference worth highlighting; either way it's taking the artist's work.

I'm not saying it's OK or it's not OK, I'm just saying that there's a lot of hypocracy in rock n' rollers complaining about hip hop samples of rock recordings*.

I'm not all that big on hip hop or modern R&B myself - I'll take classic R&B over the new stuff in a heartbeat, but that's just personal preference only - though there are exceptions that I like quite a bit. But I'm old enough to recognize that most folk who complain about it don't sound any different then my parents generation sounded when they complained about Elvis and the Beatles.

The new generations like hip hop. Get over it. That's how the world turns. In another ten years, Mindset's children will be liking something else we haven't even heard of yet, and he'll be the old man complaining about "these kids these days and their unintelligible music" ;).

G.

*I reserve one personal exception: Nena Cherry's use of samples from "The Pusher" was sacrilege, plain and simple. ;) Yeah, it was a good use of the right song for the right subject, I give it credit for that, but some songs should just be off-limits :p
Well, I don't disagree with most of what you're saying. But this Zeppellin sidetrack is just that; The thread got side-tracked. It's un-related to the hip-hop argument, which is also a side-track from this thread, which started out about who should, in my opinion, be calling themself a producer. Believe me, I probably know, listen to, and like hip-hop more than most non hip-hop musicians here.

But the Led Zep situation is more than just taking a few blues tunes and covering them. If you have a few minutes, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCMDR0yrxMw&feature=related It tells the story better than I can.

(As a side note, I think they credited Dixon for "Bring it on Home", but not "Whole Lotta Love".)

Their manager, Peter Grant, has settled out of court with many many people, not only, but including WILLIE DIXON. I think DIXON sued them more than once, and it didn't get settled out of court on at least one occasion, where it went to court and he won.

I do disagree that sampling an actual recording is no worse than playing a tune. It might not be a lot worse, but it's worse, I think. It's like saying that it's no worse for a cover band to lyp-sync to the original recording of a song than it is for them to learn the song and play it.

Peace. :)
 
It's like saying that it's no worse for a cover band to lyp-sync to the original recording of a song than it is for them to learn the song and play it.

Peace. :)

As far as ASCAP/BMI is concerned, it's the same thing. And given the quality of most cover bands, I'd take the original recording. Even if the band has good players, probably the song doesn't really need the three hour jazz odyssey solo added to every tune . . .
 
And given the quality of most cover bands, I'd take the original recording.

I agree...But for that matter, most original bands would be better off lip-syncing their own tunes, too. Besides a very small handful of big name bands, most of them suck live. I've seen cover bands do the Stones and Aerosmith way better than the Stones and Aerosmith.
 
Well, I don't disagree with most of what you're saying. But this Zeppellin sidetrack is just that; The thread got side-tracked. It's un-related to the hip-hop argument, which is also a side-track from this thread, which started out about who should, in my opinion, be calling themself a producer. Believe me, I probably know, listen to, and like hip-hop more than most non hip-hop musicians here.

But the Led Zep situation is more than just taking a few blues tunes and covering them. If you have a few minutes, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCMDR0yrxMw&feature=related It tells the story better than I can.

(As a side note, I think they credited Dixon for "Bring it on Home", but not "Whole Lotta Love".)

Their manager, Peter Grant, has settled out of court with many many people, not only, but including WILLIE DIXON. I think DIXON sued them more than once, and it didn't get settled out of court on at least one occasion, where it went to court and he won.

I do disagree that sampling an actual recording is no worse than playing a tune. It might not be a lot worse, but it's worse, I think. It's like saying that it's no worse for a cover band to lyp-sync to the original recording of a song than it is for them to learn the song and play it.

Peace. :)

Sorry if I sent the thread off on a tangent. :o I was just making a tongue-in-cheek comment on LZ being ripped off when they were the masters at it. (And really, all they had to do was get a mechanical license and pay some royalties. What's the big deal?)

Now back to our regularly scheduled "Producah-Bashing". :D
 
Well fellas you guys are going to trip on this one.. :)
One of our family of company's, one of my old teachers from sound school. He has pull, and has been successful in the industry 30+ years yada yada yada.. Deep pockets. Anyways, Led Zep will be moving down to DFW area from I guess some where in Europe in Feb/March 09, and will join the team w/ Pantera ppl. Oh btw Tommy's got caught up by the law, in jail now with no bond for some possession or the lather. Along with a nice production team. Anyways, what should I ask em?
 
I wouldn't totally agree with what you said. Those people you named are just damn good producers, because I do produce. May not be as good as the professionals, but it's still producing. I consider myself more of a composor than a producer. I'm sure there's a science to getting the sound you want which I have no idea. I can usually get close to the sound I want, but I know the pros know exactly what to do.
 
Now that Rami has nearly brought this thread back on track, I will make some observations.

The English language is constantly evolving. We get new words all the time, and old words mutate to have different meanings.

For example, 'mileage' was a word that described fuel consumption in a vehicle. It's still used in that context here, even thoutgh we've gone metric years ago and deal in kilometres (but 'kilometreage' sounds kinda dumb). However, it has acquired an additional meaning, which is to describe the worth you get out of something, e.g. "he got good mileage out of that TV".

The anarchical part of me applauds new uses for old words, and new words themselves. I like the idea of language being a mutating, mangling beast.

The literary part of me deplores the loss of specific meaning that sometimes happens as a consequence. For example, many people in this politically correct era are using the more genteel 'gender' as an equivalent of 'sex', when in fact they define distinctly different concepts. The current interchangeability of these terms means that we are in danger of losing that conceptual difference.

This, I fear, is what is happeinng here with 'producer'. On one level, I don't really care what people call themselves, but on the other, I am concerned that a long-held and stable concept of 'producer' is being denatured.

However, I can see how this arises in this era where songs are assembled from bits and pieces of other songs. Can a person who does this call themselves a 'composer'? Well, not really. Someone else has done the composing. They're just rearranging the pieces. 'Composer' doesn't really apply, but I can see how 'producer' might, because they are putting together something cohesive from bits they've scavenged. However, I think 'Assembler' is a better way to describe this work; their role is not that different to someone in a manufacturing plant, putting together items from prefabricated parts.
 
Well fellas you guys are going to trip on this one.. :)
One of our family of company's, one of my old teachers from sound school. He has pull, and has been successful in the industry 30+ years yada yada yada.. Deep pockets. Anyways, Led Zep will be moving down to DFW area from I guess some where in Europe in Feb/March 09, and will join the team w/ Pantera ppl. Oh btw Tommy's got caught up by the law, in jail now with no bond for some possession or the lather. Along with a nice production team. Anyways, what should I ask em?
You could ask em to translate your post. I have no idea what you just said. :D :D :D
 
I love James Brown and EW&F as much as I like Deep Purple.

I shake my booty to James Brown every Saturday night.

But Earth Wind and Fire? Deep Purple? Now I know you're crazy. :rolleyes:

It surprises me that such a large proportion of the members responding to this thread think that sampling is some sort of crime, something that makes you 'less of a musician,' or something along those lines. That line of thinking is incredibly backward and completely without logic when you view it in a larger context. That larger context is in the history and form of the art itself, separate from the bullshit context of ignorance and stereotype.

A literary critic named Mikhail Bakhtin (b. 1895 d. 1975, Russian) explained in The Dialogic Imagination an idea called heteroglossia. Heteroglossia, in a nutshell, is a blending of heterogeneous utterances which are arranged by an author into an artistic system. To make an utterance, he says, "is to appropriate the words of others and populate them with one's own intention." The 'art' then, of a novel then is no longer the creation of a distinctive 'voice' but rather the unification of layers and layers of voices into a tapestry. Think Joyce's Ulysses.

Now listen: If you're building furniture, you don't have to grow the fucking trees to get the wood you need. When painting, you don't have to create your own colors. When playing guitar, you don't have to invent your own notes. You just build, paint, play. The only thing that matters at the end is the final product, which, since it hadn't existed before, must be unique. But what's left, though it may contain samples or snippets or utterances of artists who have come before, is therefore necessarily shot-through with your own intentions, which are separate from the original sample. The original sample's intention as its own sovereign piece is still present, allowing the song/utterance to be intertextual and to exist in postmodern discourse. All art exists within a great conversation, that connects our earliest known memories with the ideas of today.

Take a look at Andy Warhol. Why paint a fucking can of soup? Why'd he have to rip-off campbell's? Why couldn't he make his own god damn painting!!!! :rolleyes:

When did he paint it? 1968? 40 years ago? Still not getting it? How about musique concrete? Pierre Schaeffer? Pierre Henry? You know, the 'futurama theme song?' Sampling was invented the moment the magnetic tape recorder came about, and has been a part of music ever since.

That some of you choose to ignore the fact that you live in the postmodern is your choice. But hey, you might find a bit of fresh air by branching out a bit. Turn off the Foghat and turn on a college radio station. Take a spin through an art opening (free booze at least), read a book, or just sit on a park bench and listen. The car-horn blasting doesn't care that it's been done before, the townie driving the pickup truck with the metallica t-shirt turning around to flip the bird is instantly recognizable. The art is in the simple arrangement of these images and sounds.

Now, to respond to the original post, which I think doesn't even need a response, but since everyone's got their panties up in a bunch writing seven pages about nonsense that needn't be thought about for more than six seconds, I figure I might as well throw it out there.

There are just as many black kids making crappy beats calling themselves producers as there are white kids wanking off on white stratocasters calling themselves musicians.

Who gives a fuck. Really.

And who has time to even think about this nonsense? Shouldn't you be busy learning the solo to smoke on the water? Or scratching your balls and watching the game on TV?

Yeah, this was a crazy post. I guess I'll sum it up with this:

If you think rap is not music, and that sampling is a crime, pull your head out of your ass. This the 2008, not 1706. Get with it.
 
I shake my booty to James Brown every Saturday night.

But Earth Wind and Fire? Deep Purple? Now I know you're crazy. :rolleyes:

It surprises me that such a large proportion of the members responding to this thread think that sampling is some sort of crime, something that makes you 'less of a musician,' or something along those lines. That line of thinking is incredibly backward and completely without logic when you view it in a larger context. That larger context is in the history and form of the art itself, separate from the bullshit context of ignorance and stereotype.

A literary critic named Mikhail Bakhtin (b. 1895 d. 1975, Russian) explained in The Dialogic Imagination an idea called heteroglossia. Heteroglossia, in a nutshell, is a blending of heterogeneous utterances which are arranged by an author into an artistic system. To make an utterance, he says, "is to appropriate the words of others and populate them with one's own intention." The 'art' then, of a novel then is no longer the creation of a distinctive 'voice' but rather the unification of layers and layers of voices into a tapestry. Think Joyce's Ulysses.

Now listen: If you're building furniture, you don't have to grow the fucking trees to get the wood you need. When painting, you don't have to create your own colors. When playing guitar, you don't have to invent your own notes. You just build, paint, play. The only thing that matters at the end is the final product, which, since it hadn't existed before, must be unique. But what's left, though it may contain samples or snippets or utterances of artists who have come before, is therefore necessarily shot-through with your own intentions, which are separate from the original sample. The original sample's intention as its own sovereign piece is still present, allowing the song/utterance to be intertextual and to exist in postmodern discourse. All art exists within a great conversation, that connects our earliest known memories with the ideas of today.

Take a look at Andy Warhol. Why paint a fucking can of soup? Why'd he have to rip-off campbell's? Why couldn't he make his own god damn painting!!!! :rolleyes:

When did he paint it? 1968? 40 years ago? Still not getting it? How about musique concrete? Pierre Schaeffer? Pierre Henry? You know, the 'futurama theme song?' Sampling was invented the moment the magnetic tape recorder came about, and has been a part of music ever since.

That some of you choose to ignore the fact that you live in the postmodern is your choice. But hey, you might find a bit of fresh air by branching out a bit. Turn off the Foghat and turn on a college radio station. Take a spin through an art opening (free booze at least), read a book, or just sit on a park bench and listen. The car-horn blasting doesn't care that it's been done before, the townie driving the pickup truck with the metallica t-shirt turning around to flip the bird is instantly recognizable. The art is in the simple arrangement of these images and sounds.

Now, to respond to the original post, which I think doesn't even need a response, but since everyone's got their panties up in a bunch writing seven pages about nonsense that needn't be thought about for more than six seconds, I figure I might as well throw it out there.

There are just as many black kids making crappy beats calling themselves producers as there are white kids wanking off on white stratocasters calling themselves musicians.

Who gives a fuck. Really.

And who has time to even think about this nonsense? Shouldn't you be busy learning the solo to smoke on the water? Or scratching your balls and watching the game on TV?

Yeah, this was a crazy post. I guess I'll sum it up with this:

If you think rap is not music, and that sampling is a crime, pull your head out of your ass. This the 2008, not 1706. Get with it.



this thread has officially been pwned
 
I shake my booty to James Brown every Saturday night.

But Earth Wind and Fire? Deep Purple? Now I know you're crazy. :rolleyes:

It surprises me that such a large proportion of the members responding to this thread think that sampling is some sort of crime, something that makes you 'less of a musician,' or something along those lines. That line of thinking is incredibly backward and completely without logic when you view it in a larger context. That larger context is in the history and form of the art itself, separate from the bullshit context of ignorance and stereotype.

A literary critic named Mikhail Bakhtin (b. 1895 d. 1975, Russian) explained in The Dialogic Imagination an idea called heteroglossia. Heteroglossia, in a nutshell, is a blending of heterogeneous utterances which are arranged by an author into an artistic system. To make an utterance, he says, "is to appropriate the words of others and populate them with one's own intention." The 'art' then, of a novel then is no longer the creation of a distinctive 'voice' but rather the unification of layers and layers of voices into a tapestry. Think Joyce's Ulysses.

Now listen: If you're building furniture, you don't have to grow the fucking trees to get the wood you need. When painting, you don't have to create your own colors. When playing guitar, you don't have to invent your own notes. You just build, paint, play. The only thing that matters at the end is the final product, which, since it hadn't existed before, must be unique. But what's left, though it may contain samples or snippets or utterances of artists who have come before, is therefore necessarily shot-through with your own intentions, which are separate from the original sample. The original sample's intention as its own sovereign piece is still present, allowing the song/utterance to be intertextual and to exist in postmodern discourse. All art exists within a great conversation, that connects our earliest known memories with the ideas of today.

Take a look at Andy Warhol. Why paint a fucking can of soup? Why'd he have to rip-off campbell's? Why couldn't he make his own god damn painting!!!! :rolleyes:

When did he paint it? 1968? 40 years ago? Still not getting it? How about musique concrete? Pierre Schaeffer? Pierre Henry? You know, the 'futurama theme song?' Sampling was invented the moment the magnetic tape recorder came about, and has been a part of music ever since.

That some of you choose to ignore the fact that you live in the postmodern is your choice. But hey, you might find a bit of fresh air by branching out a bit. Turn off the Foghat and turn on a college radio station. Take a spin through an art opening (free booze at least), read a book, or just sit on a park bench and listen. The car-horn blasting doesn't care that it's been done before, the townie driving the pickup truck with the metallica t-shirt turning around to flip the bird is instantly recognizable. The art is in the simple arrangement of these images and sounds.

Now, to respond to the original post, which I think doesn't even need a response, but since everyone's got their panties up in a bunch writing seven pages about nonsense that needn't be thought about for more than six seconds, I figure I might as well throw it out there.

There are just as many black kids making crappy beats calling themselves producers as there are white kids wanking off on white stratocasters calling themselves musicians.

Who gives a fuck. Really.

And who has time to even think about this nonsense? Shouldn't you be busy learning the solo to smoke on the water? Or scratching your balls and watching the game on TV?

Yeah, this was a crazy post. I guess I'll sum it up with this:

If you think rap is not music, and that sampling is a crime, pull your head out of your ass. This the 2008, not 1706. Get with it.
ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....................is he finished yet??????

Way to completely miss the point. But I'm glad you got to lose some diarrhea along the way.:eek:
But Earth Wind and Fire? Deep Purple? Now I know you're crazy.
2 great bands in their own right. And you're suggesting OTHER PEOPLE are being narrow-minded???? Who's crazy again???
but since everyone's got their panties up in a bunch writing seven pages
Yeah, good thing your 7 page post shows you're not getting YOUR panties in a bunch over it. :rolleyes:
There are just as many black kids making crappy beats calling themselves producers as there are white kids wanking off on white stratocasters calling themselves musicians.
Once again, completely missing the point. Well, at least you didn't accuse anyone of stereotyping much. That would have been just plain hypocritical. :rolleyes: Oh, but wait.......
.........separate from the bullshit context of ignorance and stereotype
Damn! So, how does that shoe taste??? :D :D :D

This wasn't (until you made it) about black kids, white kids, or rap not being good music. And besides the very few who missed the point (like you) and popped a vain in their forehead (like you) thinking rap was being attacked, nobody got their panties in a bunch (unlike you) about it. It was actually a very civilized 7 pages. Whether they agreed or disagreed, most people (unlike you) got it . :)

But since you insist you don't give a fuck, and that this thread is not worth responding to (hahahaha), I'm sure you won't even respond. :D
 
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I think they pirated it from McDonalds but Guitar Hero is claiming to have sold it's millionth producer, go figure :D
 
Now that Rami has nearly brought this thread back on track, I will make some observations.

The English language is constantly evolving. We get new words all the time, and old words mutate to have different meanings.

For example, 'mileage' was a word that described fuel consumption in a vehicle. It's still used in that context here, even thoutgh we've gone metric years ago and deal in kilometres (but 'kilometreage' sounds kinda dumb). However, it has acquired an additional meaning, which is to describe the worth you get out of something, e.g. "he got good mileage out of that TV".

The anarchical part of me applauds new uses for old words, and new words themselves. I like the idea of language being a mutating, mangling beast.

The literary part of me deplores the loss of specific meaning that sometimes happens as a consequence. For example, many people in this politically correct era are using the more genteel 'gender' as an equivalent of 'sex', when in fact they define distinctly different concepts. The current interchangeability of these terms means that we are in danger of losing that conceptual difference.

This, I fear, is what is happeinng here with 'producer'. On one level, I don't really care what people call themselves, but on the other, I am concerned that a long-held and stable concept of 'producer' is being denatured.

However, I can see how this arises in this era where songs are assembled from bits and pieces of other songs. Can a person who does this call themselves a 'composer'? Well, not really. Someone else has done the composing. They're just rearranging the pieces. 'Composer' doesn't really apply, but I can see how 'producer' might, because they are putting together something cohesive from bits they've scavenged. However, I think 'Assembler' is a better way to describe this work; their role is not that different to someone in a manufacturing plant, putting together items from prefabricated parts.

Great post. Nice to see someone isn't just randomly farting on their keyboard. :cool:
 
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