Saying we sample, giving examples...

Public Enemy used unusual samples (recontextualised obscure sounds), as well as the standard drum loops from the hip hop lexicon. Puff Daddy uses samples simply to appropriate well-known commercial hooks. As such he shows a great commercial ear for what 'the public' want to hear, but no particular musical inventiveness.

Puffy: Has a knack for 'sampling' entire lines of a song; which is to say that he takes, from beginning to end, the entire bassline from 'Every Breath You Take,' and the whole riff of 'Kashmir' from beginning to end, which naturally makes the new song 7-odd minutes long. Yuck.

Along those lines, the Beasties used to (Liscense to Ill-era) sample key parts of riffs and loop them, so the Na-na-nananah from 'Ocean' was placeable ("Oh, that's from Led Zeppelin!") but still different because it wasn't the whole song complete with time changes and bridges.

PE, Prince Paul and others: chooses little bits and recontextualizes them to make a new song, even if the parts are very recognizeable. It's the density of layers and inventiveness that separate the samples from the rip-offs

David, that seems to be implying that the difference between a good sample and a bad sample is that you haven't heard the sampled song. I don't know about you, but I'd heard James Brown, I'd heard the JBs, "Son Of Shaft", Bobby Byrd, etc. before I heard Public Enemy. The idea of using the sample for a different meaning doesn't really work - after all, the musical qualities of the sample almost always stay the same, so tagging a different lyric on will have the same effect whatever the sample. And Public Enemy still sound good. I won't accept that the listener knowing the original makes the difference between a good sample and a bad sample. Also, when PE take something like "The Grunt" and turn it into "Rebel Without A Pause", that doesn't seem to me to be much more recontextualised than most "commercial" sampling. Rather than "PE good, Puffy bad", why do you think that sampling obscure sounds is better?

Greg:

"that seems to be implying that the difference between a good sample and a bad sample is that you haven't heard the sampled song."

Well no, a 'good' sample could be an inventively arranged sample of a well-known sound/track (or equally of an obscure sound), or an uninventive (straight-looped) sample of a less well-known track. "The idea of using the sample for a different meaning doesn't really work - after all, the musical qualities of the sample almost always stay the same, so tagging a different lyric on will have the same effect whatever the sample".

Not if the sample is cut on a different beat of the bar thus creating a different cadence/phrasing to the original (when combined with other sounds); or filtered to make its tonal balance sound different; or cut into many pieces and re-arranged so that the actual phrase is *completely different* (although the audio source material remains the same); or played backwards etc etc. Public Enemy are actually not the obvious example to contrast with Puff Daddy because a lot of their sampling was, as you say, unaltered loops of well-known rare groove 70's funk. Nevertheless they used some unusual overlayed noises on top of the beats.

"Rather than "PE good, Puffy bad", why do you think that sampling obscure sounds is better?"

Well it might not be better from the listeners' point of view. However from an artistic point of view there is more creativity in making something from nothing than in simply recycling someone else's work unaltered. ---------------------------------------------------- Returning finally to your original question...if you compare PE (relatively uninventive sampling by today's standards) with PD (hack sampling of obvious hooks), it could be argued that PE *added considerably* to their loops through additional noises and powerful lyrical content. Puff Daddy, on the other hand, uses a lot of cheesy whole-track samples (not just beats), and rides on the back of them adding only 2nd rate additional content.

The way I see it, a good use of sampling will create a separate feeling from that created within the original song. Puff Daddy's very savvy in a way, but he ends up sounding obvious because his sampling largesse requires that he find a source that is similar to the song he's making.

"Every Breath You Take" and "I'll Be Missing You" have a different narrative but are both very sentimental, so it sounds like a cover version. Shorter samples tend to work better because they're just sounds - it's harder to mentally recreate the original song and therefore the sample's use doesn't detract from the original song.

Public Enemy I think are revered because they wielded a large number of samples at once in a way that was still effective. The advantage to this technique is not that you can't recognise the sources but rather that the "feel" of the sample is so altered by the presence of the others that the sensation it creates is thoroughly new.

The best example I can think of is (of course) The Avalanches, who use the bassline from Madonna's "Holiday" quite prominently on their album. It sounds very different though because it is part of a larger arrangement, and therefore it does not dominate the music but is altered by it. Consequently knowlege of the original is no barrier to feeling that the music created sounds "fresh".

There's got to be something on top of the sample otherwise it's just gratuitous Puffy crap. Without the samples, Puffy is nothing. Without samples, Public Enemy are still powerful and important. When good musicians and artists use samples, they add to the artist's effectiveness. When bad artists do it, the sample is the only thing the song has going for it.

Also, Puffy doesn't just sample, he really rewrites songs. Hell, Puff Daddy's reworkings are just like writing a few new lyrics ala Elton John's Candle in the Friggin' Wind. Sampling shouldn't make you feel like you're hearing a bad cover version by a profoundly untalented hack.

I cursed this one by mentioning Puffy and PE, didn't I? I meant it to be more general.

Simple, general answer for you: People call it "sampling" when they like the end result. They call it "ripping off" when they think it's crap. Simple as that. I mean, Eminem's "Stan" qualifies as a "rip off" under the definition I've seen put forth in this forum but since most of you (?) seem to like the song, ten bucks says that it's going to get considered a sample.

Ally, I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head there. A more precise answer might be that it's always sampling but obvious sampling is harder to pull of than non-obvious sampling. You've got the core reason why obvious sampling is harder; if the resulting song doesn't work, people will dismiss it as an uncreative rip-off.

"Stan" works largely because of the obvious sample, IMO. I can't imagine that song without Dido's hook or that particular beat. In a similar vein, "Mo Money, Mo Problems" would be completely unrecognizeable and probably not work as well without being tied to "I'm Coming Out".

True Ally, but I still think people can say there's genius sampling at work in "Stan" because by itself Dido's "Thank You" is clearly pants. If "Thank You" was musically as gripping as the use of it on "Stan", the latter's arrangement wouldn't be particularly clever.