Electronic Music 411 - timbaland addresses demo controversy

its pretty clear he doesnt have the correct answer as to what we know he should say about sampling, but because he's a little slow doesnt make him wrong. What he's saying is true, there's nothing inherently wrong with sampling.
In the end, man doesn't own a timbre. That's just stupid to think you can.

Lastly, why is pretty much any "underground" type of "scene" just waiting in the shadows for someone to rip into? That's just as bad as the mindless mtv programming.

02/10/07 + Japes

If you're earning Timbaland's money you should be trying to better yourself and come up with incredible new tracks, not just completely nicking other people's tunes and saying you sampled it. No conspiracy against those earning dough. Just make sure you actually EARN the cunt, eh?

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02/10/07 + astroid

i fucking love me some timbaland.

but he's most likely a fucking sleazebag. this is not a feeling that i have unique to timbaland.

Recent blogs: generative music speculations pt. #fu, thank you, wetf

edited: Feb 11 2007 + soundhdack

ignatius said: "what does it mean that this guy's song was on the internet to download and not on a CD? if it was on a CD with credits what do you think would have happened? to me it sounds like he would have stolen it anyways."

The difference is that unless we're talking about white label vinyl, the credits will obviously be available on CD or LP or cassette, whereas on the Internet material can be found for download without any credit to the author at all.

Like everybody else you are entitled to your opinion, but to say that you think that someone is thief before all the facts are known is not very responsible. Many people, myself included, were calling Timbaland a thief before he gave any response to the whole debacle. Now that he has spoken I have realized that I was weaseled out of my common sense by people offering up very strong opinions presented as fact. For instance, those compare and contrast videos. Again, those videos only succeed at demonstrating the sameness of the two pieces of music, what they do not do is prove that Timbaland is a thief, and nor do they prove that he had the intention to steal. Those videos are actually very strong opinions presented as evidence to a standard of proof. Damn near anybody could be persuaded by them in the absence of the accused's testimony. Those videos are used in the same way commercials are used in political campaigns here in the US. They are always one sided opinions present as fact absent a response from the political rival. Which is why they are very effective at persuading people's votes.

astroid said: "i fucking love me some timbaland.

but he's most likely a fucking sleazebag. this is not a feeling that i have unique to timbaland."

He's worked with so many personality types, from Young Jeezy to Björk, and lasted so long in the business, through at least two generations of artists, that I don't get the impression he's a "sleazebag". Without a doubt he's a very good businessman, but with all of the labels and artists that he's produced for, it just doesn't ring true to me that he's screwing people over. Just my opinion, of course. Other than that, I don't know the guy.

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02/11/07 + crabster

Success is hardly a measure of non-assholeness.

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02/11/07 + astroid

well,
to get successful in the music business, you have to get a lot of help. a lot of free or underpaid help. each one of those tracks you hear on the radio, that's not mr. big producer sitting down with mister big artist and then firing it off to mr. big mixer and then mr. big mastering engineer. at that level, those people all have assisstants, ghost writers, engineers, toadies and editors, many of whom are hanging on out of the sheer promise of glory. i know of people flat out writing and producing parts for songs and not getting paid or credited. there's lots and lots of that, especially in hiphop. to be successful, you have to learn how to use people, to a certain extent.

Recent blogs: generative music speculations pt. #fu, thank you, wetf

02/11/07 + everamzah

unless you're too cool for that shit...

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02/11/07 + rizem

I sample sounds all the time, but then i put them through sound manipulators and craft some of my own uniqueness. What he has done is not acceptable. He must be running out of coke money.

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edited: Feb 11 2007 + pierlu001

lot's of interesting thought on the subjects, thanks guys.
i'll just add my two 2 cents, a little off topic probably.
First, i'm with skab (i'm old too lol): whatever happened to honest musicians that made a point of honour to distinguish themselves from others? nowadays it seems that in the majority of cases, style is just a matter of sound/beats, and that makes me sad. why in hell my life can be better when i hear some smart businessmen-producers tracks assembled with who knows what samples taken from who knows where? neither my life is enriched by watching at furtado's ass dancing on a tv screen (it would be different if she actually was in front of me). i feel my life is enriched when i listen to honest tracks made by honest people. that's it.
Second, i understand perfectly what astroid says with the business and making it as a producer: but even tho i understand it, that is not art, it's business right. and business has not artistic values to my eyes (i just realized that by attending a wharol exposition recently). it may creative to some extents, but i don;t think business is artistic on his own. So i really don;t understand all of the hype about hip-hop, nor i believe that people would actually listen to that if it was not so hyped and flashy with the help of tvs and commercials... it's such a poor kind of musical expression to my eyes, when it's not developed by people coming from the streets actually, who espress a sound /point of view that feels real (as it could be in the beginning of it). but as i said, i'm old: i respect and admire musicians, producers are nothing in my eyes (unless they work close with the artists to bring out their strenghts to full effect -i.e. martin with the beatles-, but that's an old way of looking at things i know).

coming back on topic, i hope the guys who wrote their original tune will be paid for it, or at least aknowledged publicly for it, not only on interweb forums. and i hope it for the same reasons mrpanda wrote: cos it will show that there's a common way to solve the attribution problem that raised since the interwebs kicked in. lately i'm thinking that probably the drm thing is not that bad if it will be applied both ways: the same for big record companies as for small indipendent artists, so that no one gets ripped off. if this case solves out so that mr timbaland can get away with it, i feel that the gap between who owns power and who just try to live their regular life will not lower in the near future and that's not what i hope. but i'm old and a dreamer. lol.

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02/11/07 + soundhdack

crabster said: "Success is hardly a measure of non-assholeness."

Neither is failure. Who can you count on to help you get ahead or to hold you back? To help you realize your vision or to obscure it? At what point are you in control of your own moments in time because of what you provide others and what others provide you? Have you measured yourself to the extent that you have measured others? Can you articulate the differences? Why does it matter to you if you are, in your view, better or worse?

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edited: Feb 11 2007 + soundhdack

astroid said: "i know of people flat out writing and producing parts for songs and not getting paid or credited. there's lots and lots of that, especially in hiphop. to be successful, you have to learn how to use people, to a certain extent."

Perhaps I've missed the point but, have these people been promised pay or credit, or have they agreed to work for nothing?

Recent blogs: Cellular Grid Machine II, Gobbledygook..., Korg + Yellow = Kaossilator!

edited: Feb 11 2007 + soundhdack

@ pierlu001

Nowadays, and it has been for a long while, the music business is more business than music. The recording industry was largely forged by businessmen who loved music. Ahmet and Nasuhi Ertegun, Clive Davis, Berry Gordy, and many others, many of them scoundrels, were responsible for what we have today. The entire construct of the business is measured in large part by the dirty rotten scoundrels who built it. Many of the devices designed to rip artists off were in fact designed by lawyers and lawmakers, and so that coupled with greed of the recordmen makes for a very hostile environment for artists who wish to make a living at what they do. Of course not all recordmen were or are scoundrels but many of them were. Anyway, if an artist has been allowed to pursue his or her own vision in the music industry it was because of an influential network of supporters within the industry and at their respective labels. Dylan, Prince and others like them who retained creative control have always been the exception rather than the rule, and even Prince despite being one of the fortunate few ended up getting screwed over by his label Warner Brothers. Horrifying stories abound of blues, jazz and folk artists that were allowed to do what they did best, their honest art, but they were never paid fairly for it. An interesting note to add is the plight of Billy Joel. Billy Joel has a contract with his very first manager that can't ever in the history or future of existence be nullified without that manager saying so. What I mean is that if Joel dies, reincarnates as Billy Joel again, and that manager does the same thing, then that manager can still take a cut from everything that Joel earns. If there is the definitive asshole then it's that particular manager that Billy Joel once had.

It's very interesting that you point out Andy Warhol in relation to art. Well Andy Warhol represents the most successful artist in the history of the world. That being of course, himself. Andy is unique in that he blurred the distinction between graphic design and art. His background was that of a graphic designer in advertising, but he segued rather smoothly into the art world using practices common to business and advertising for a very successful career as an artist. No artist alive or dead has an estate as valuable as that of Andy Warhol's. It is worth at least half of a billion dollars. Some might say that the genius of Warhol had more to do with his ability to create a successful and thorough marriage between art and commerce, rather than just the art itself. Indeed many believe that Andy Warhol succeeded in branding himself to the point where his name is more important than what his name is attached to. Matters of opinion, of course, but there's no denying Warhol's deftness as an artist and a businessman.

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02/12/07 + pierlu001

well, my personal opinion is that Wharol was a great artist cos he was the first one to create that special form of artistry that blurs into business. he was so creative that he managed to build out a carreer out of it. That's what makes him a great artist, in my eyes, whereas all of his work seems to me like the work of an highly talented craftsman... probably only his latest works are closer to what i feel to be like art (to make an example close to wharol, to me basquiat was a real painter, his paintings have a strength that lacks in wharol's, it's not a case to me that wharol was so protective with him and loved him so much).

to extend the concept furthermore, and falling completely out of topic now, probably the importance of the wharol experience was exactly that: he marked the end of the era of great single artists, by asserting that the only way for single artist to make it to the spotlight is to market him/herselves as a product (one of the other great personalities who did this in electronic music is the aphex twin, who has also a great gift for music luckily). Probaby there's no more room for art where the business is completely out of the control of the artist himself, cos the pressures one may endure in that case could be simply too high and have nothing to do with creativity/art itself.

I think that in the future, the only way to mantain that artistic freedom and still be able to earn a living will be people coming together as collectives, where there are departments in which there are artists that fed their creativity with each other and where there are other departments which take care of the "brand" under which the art is developed... some kind of "evolved artistic movements", as they were in the past. i think that one can easily spot that on the interwebs nowadays, but i believe, and hope, that this will grow more and more in the future.

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02/12/07 + soundhdack

@ pierlu001

Yes, Basquiat was a great one. One of my favorites, too. I have wondered where he would be artistically these days if he were still alive.

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02/13/07 + ignatius

soundhack- yes so true.. the music business is way more business than music. mostly because they put a bunch of accountants in charge when the big labels merged into a few really big labels. the business model changed from signing a band and developing it to snatching up indy bands once they got popular or churning out heavily marketed pop music and britney spears like stuff. or.. just buying the indy label outright.

there is the ever popular argument that the cash cow of a britney spears etc is what funds the "little" bands that only sell 100,000 copies or so of their first couple records but i don't really buy that argument... mostly because many of those bands get hosed and locked into 5 album deals etc and end up getting smaller and smaller portions of the $$$ their output creates.

but then you have the ? of motives for some artists and why they do what they do and the whole rockstar dream etc.. etc. egos, perosnalities blah blah..

the birth of so many indy labels in the last 15 years is in large part to the way the bigs did/do things.. so in some ways it spawned many many bands making great music and doing what they want on their own terms.

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