June 26, 2023
“Find an example of a song containing a direct audio sample of another song. I recommend using WhoSampled.com. Post links to both songs and explain how the sample was used. Does it form the basis of the beat? Is it a background texture? Does it run throughout the song or just appear once?”
Though many different pieces of the original “Country Roads” by John Denver are present throughout the entire piece, the basis of this remix by Pretty Lights uses a sample of just two guitar notes (0:09) which occur in the pause Denver takes between singing “Almost heaven,” and “West Virginia.” The clips are mixed with rhythms from a drum kit and sometimes lapse into heavier synthetic sections, along with rearranged, repeated snippets of Denver’s vocals.
“Find an example of a song that contains a quotation or interpolation of another song, and post links to both of them.”
Taco’s 1982 cover of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” by Irving Berlin is a great example of quotation, since the cover contains no less than five other song quotations. Interestingly, all of the songs quoted were other hits by Irving Berlin and span several decades of his work.
Music Tech 2023 