What's This Music For?

The final mix for the Skeleton Crew album is 95% complete and mastering is imminent.  The album cover is almost done, too.  We’ll soon be ready to actually order a mess of those old-fashioned shiny round things called compact discs.  The process may be slow as molasses, but the end product will be sweet, my friends.  Here, enjoy a creepy still from the video for the song “Skeleton Crew”.

“Borrowing” Music
“Borrowing” Music II
“Borrowing” Music III
“Borrowing” Music IV

In this installment, Coolio samples and borrows the melody from Stevie Wonder’s “Past Time Paradise” to create “Gangsta’s Paradise”.  And just for fun, “Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody, “Amish Paradise”.  In both cases credit was given to Stevie.

“Borrowing” Music
“Borrowing” Music II
“Borrowing” Music III

In the 80’s and beyond we have the phenomenon of not only borrowing melodies and chord progressions, but actual recordings.  Rick James sued MC Hammer (later, just “Hammer”) for sampling “Super Freak” (1981)  to construct “U Can’t Touch This” (1990) without giving the proper credit (and share of the songwriting royalties).

“Borrowing” Music
“Borrowing” Music II

Compare the Chiffons doing “He’s So Fine” (1962) with George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” (1970).  This one went to court and George lost.

“Borrowing” Music

For the second installment of this series, compare Jake Holmes’ version of his song “Dazed and Confused”  (1967) and Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused” (1969), which is credited to Jimmy Page, with no mention of Jake Holmes.  The song remains the same, indeed.