What are plunderphonics and why do I care?

Plunderphonics, put simply, is the use of pre-recorded sounds and/or music to create new music or sounds.

The term was coined by John Oswald and he lays it all out beautifully in his essay. Also see his website for music and info.

Almost all popular music uses some form of “borrowing” or, depending on how you look at it “stealing” . Samples comprise all of the instrumentation in early hip-hop as well as almost all forms of modern ‘dance’ music. Yet sampling is referred to as stealing and musicians are kept in check by strict rules regarding how many continuous seconds they are allowed to use by law.

Some concessions are made for “parodies” but even then, people get sued all them time for fun-loving and interesting renditions.

One of my most loved examples of this is negativeland’s cover of “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” by U2. They sued the pants of those hilarious and genius lads.

A good example of why not to sue would be the Amen break.

The Amen Break is a drum solo halfway through the B side of a 45 titled “Amen Brother” by the band The Winstons.

The Amen Break is responsible for most popular dance and hip hop music of the 80’s and 90’s and beyond. That drum solo has sampled in most of what is called “jungle”, “hardcore breaks”, “acid house”, “drum and bass”, “Breakcore” as well as much of early hip hop.

Listen to the drum solo from Amen Brother here. And you will recount countless songs from high school, many drug addled “raves”, whatever, you’ve heard it before, trust me. There have been THOUSANDS of songs that use it, maybe even millions.

Neither the band, composer, or drummer of “Amen Brother” have never received any royalties for its use. If they had, the face of music as we know it would be different. Sure, maybe royalties amount to a penny or two per play to make a nice living for those that deserve it, but it would be enough to discourage thousands of would be DJ’s and samplers from participating in music at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a musician who has 2+ jobs he doesn’t have time for because I just want to stay home and make music and I have to go to bed soon so I feel like something other than animated leather tomorrow, but is broke as hell and barely has gas to make it there and would gladly accept royalties in lieu of other gainful employment……. Actually, no I wouldn’t accept them (royalties) if it meant the discouragement of others from making music that was VASTLY different from the music I had made.

copywrong. music is free once it escapes into the air.