Music 'Interpolation'

[thejuice]

Ever notice how new Gen Z songs sounds like songs from the Gen X or Boomer generation?
Well apparently there's a weasel word for it called Interpolation, where you rerecord the exact same melody and change the lyrics and a brand new money maker is now yours. Because Gen Z are inexperienced and, as a whole, prefer playing videogames to listening to music, they are less likely to know music history so this recycled music appears new to them. Not a diss on Gen Z btw. Videogames are cool and far more stimulating than music is in my opinion.

 

[FayetheAspie]

I don't know what most of them are listening to. I just know that I don't like hearing most of it from any of the generations my own included.

 

[Judge]

That's interesting.

I did a lot of "interpolation" when I was an insurance rater. But with numbers relative to rating charts and values. Where property values could be in between rate numbers forcing us to interpolate them to get a precise premium due.

Though I am aware of lawsuits like those of Vanilla Ice and David Bowie. Not cool, Vanilla.

 

[Mr. Stevens]

I wonder if these people are all using the word interpolate correctly, or just seeing if they get sued or not. Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys) interpolated older American songs on Smile, but gave credit. That is, he wrote music which quotes or appropriates parts of older songs (such as "Gee" by The Crows or "You Are My Sunshine," whose author is disputed).

However, when he turned "Sweet Little Sixteen" by Chuck Berry into "Surfin' USA," he got sued. I don't think the melodies are exactly the same, but Wilson essentially took the music and wrote new words to it. When John Lennon took some Chuck Berry lyrics for part of "Come Together" they did an out-of-court settlement.

The examples in the video are interesting. The Dua Lipa song does have a melody like the guitar part in "Need You Tonight," but the melody of the INXS song is different. I mean, the vocals in each song are different. So she kind of wrote new lyrics fitting the guitar part, but not what Michael Hutchence is singing. And I think the KISS song is essentially based on a scale, so maybe it's not one they can sue over. I could be wrong. I'm surprised Beato didn't go into these details.

 

[Judge]

Might be easier to just cite suspicions of "copyright infringement" and "plagiarism" .

 

[TBRS1]

When songs become well known and played or sung by many people they have become contemporary folk songs (by the actual, literal definition of a folk song), no matter what genre they were originally done in.

Folk songs are always modified, or stretches of musical phrases are moved from one song to another, as the musician sees fit (I'm an artist. Art is creative theft of what was done before. It's called "an influence." Everybody is influenced).

I understand intellectual property rights, but they only affect recordings sold for profit.

Also, how big a "chunk" needs to be used before copyright infringement has occurred? A 5 note sequence? A 15 note sequence? Most of the songs I know have at least one 3 or 4 note sequence that matches another entirely different song. Ascending or decending scales are way, way common.

People who want to sing or play music are going to sing and play the music they want to.

Who thinks anybody can stop them? They can only be stopped from making money from the song.

 

[MildredHubble]

Oh I saw this exact video a while ago. People using words they don't understand to attempt euphemistically describe ripping off other people's creativity and pretend it's somehow a legitimate form of creativity.

There's a lot of this silliness going on. Words don't just have arbitrary meanings. We can't just pretend that they do.

About a year or two ago I saw a video show up on my YouTube feed titled "Apple Leaks" and I thought "okay that might be fun to watch and see it it turns out to be accurate." But I just ended up becoming a bit infuriated. The video was just a guy showing mocked up iPhones that were all kinds of ridiculous. Things with holographic screens etc. All the while this idiot was introducing them as "leaks". He kept on showing these fantasy products and saying "OMG, that is such a great leak....next up we have a new leak from [insert name] who has created an iMac leak with a laser projected display and keyboard... Oh wow those were some great leaks!!!"

The definition of a "leak" ie "product leak" is that it's an actual image or video, or description of a real product that the manufacturer did not intend to be released to the public before it launches.

It seems that some people were keen in the past to create fantasy products and release images online in attempt to get some internet fame for creating a mock up that people believed was a leak. At some point people failed to understand this and now there's a bunch of actual people with access to cars, credit cards, gas ovens and sharp objects that will insist that a "leak" is something someone dreams up so some gob on a stick can perpetuate this stupidity via social media.

"Interpolate" as a concept seems to be perfectly in line with the surreal world we are living in. I've heard it referred to as "concept creep". Seems about right.

 

[Outdated]

The more the world changes the more she stays the same. The music industry has always been incestuous.

One story that always tickled me was when Jimmy Hendrix started playing his version of Bob Dylan's song All Along The Watchtower. Dylan heard about this and attended a Hendrix concert with two lawyers in tow to witness the plagiarism first hand.

After the concert Dylan and lawyers went backstage and talked to Hendrix. Dylan said that he had intended to sue but he liked what Hendrix did with his song so much that he was going to let it pass.

All Along the Watchtower - Wikipedia

 

[Mr. Stevens]

When songs become well known and played or sung by many people they have become contemporary folk songs (by the actual, literal definition of a folk song), no matter what genre they were originally done in.

Folk songs are always modified, or stretches of musical phrases are moved from one song to another, as the musician sees fit (I'm an artist. Art is creative theft of what was done before. It's called "an influence." Everybody is influenced).

After my previous post I thought about Bob Dylan. He took many public domain songs and rewrote words to them. Thus, "Blowin' in the Wind." Or adapted peers' songs ("Norwegian Wood") into his own ("Second Time Around").

Or Steely Dan. "Barrytown" comes from "If I Needed Someone" by The Beatles. "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" is based on Horace Silvers' "Song for My Father." Keith Jarrett sued them or taking "Gaucho" from one of his songs.

And for Gen Z: even The Beatles took "Sun King" from "Albatross" by Fleetwood Mac

 

[Mr. Stevens]

The more the world changes the more she stays the same. The music industry has always been incestuous.

One story that always tickled me was when Jimmy Hendrix started playing his version of Bob Dylan's song All Along The Watchtower. Dylan heard about this and attended a Hendrix concert with two lawyers in tow to witness the plagiarism first hand.

After the concert Dylan and lawyers went backstage and talked to Hendrix. Dylan said that he had intended to sue but he liked what Hendrix did with his song so much that he was going to let it pass.

All Along the Watchtower - Wikipedia

Where did you hear this? It doesn't really make sense. Lots of people covered Dylan songs and did their own arrangements. I don't see why Dylan would assume the Jimi Hendrix version was some kind of plagiarism.

"Dazed and Confused" by Led Zeppelin might be a better example.

 

[MildredHubble]

Where did you hear this? It doesn't really make sense. Lots of people covered Dylan songs and did their own arrangements. I don't see why Dylan would assume the Jimi Hendrix version was some kind of plagiarism.

"Dazed and Confused" by Led Zeppelin might be a better example.

I've heard about this a long time ago (maybe back when I was 15) but I didn't know it was all along the watch tower. The person that told me also told me that it was Bob Dylan that encouraged Jimi Hendrix to sing on his songs. They also went on to tell me that Bob Dylan added the arpeggio electric guitar in Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel without permission (not sure how) but it turned out they liked it, even if it is constantly dropping out of time.

 

[Outdated]

Where did you hear this? It doesn't really make sense. Lots of people covered Dylan songs and did their own arrangements. I don't see why Dylan would assume the Jimi Hendrix version was some kind of plagiarism.

It was a story in Rolling Stones magazine back in the late 70s. Dylan wrote a sizeable percentage of the songs of that entire era and sold rights to different songs to just about everyone. That was his business. He was a good musician in his own right as well but he wrote far more than he ever performed himself. Just about every band out there was singing at least one or two Dylan songs.

 

[thejuice]

I probably like Dylan more than I realise then. I could never get on with his solo stuff. Well whatever a schoolboy used to bring In to play in the commonroom. His 'singing', harmonica and guitar strumming are too strident, percussive and atonal, it's like a mosquito buzzing in my ear and his voice is not my cup of tea at all, he sounds like a ranting and raving vagrant. Not what i wanted to hear when I was tired and cranky before morning registration!

I'm probably harsh on Dylan because I hated that boy and his snobbish self satisfaction about himself and Dad rock being better than everyone and everything. Heresy to say these things I know and I'm probably out of the cool club. I am emotionally compromised in my judgement. Listening to it now i can appreciate the songwriting a bit more, still, I will never listen to it willingly or unless I don't realise

 

[thejuice]

Just discovered Lay Lady Lay I can definitely listen to this

 

[thejuice]

Tambourine man was Dylan nice. Turns out I like a handful of his songs.

 

[Mr. Stevens]

I've heard about this a long time ago (maybe back when I was 15) but I didn't know it was all along the watch tower. The person that told me also told me that it was Bob Dylan that encouraged Jimi Hendrix to sing on his songs. They also went on to tell me that Bob Dylan added the arpeggio electric guitar in Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel without permission (not sure how) but it turned out they liked it, even if it is constantly dropping out of time.

The overdubs on "The Sound of Silence" for the hit version were by Tom Wilson. He did produce some Dylan recordings, but Bob Dylan had nothing to do with that record.

 

[MildredHubble]

The overdubs on "The Sound of Silence" for the hit version were by Tom Wilson. He did produce some Dylan recordings, but Bob Dylan had nothing to do with that record.

Huh, that's kinda weird because I did hear that Bob Dylan added it on a documentary in the early 2000s too. The story was that it was recorded in the same studio that Bob Dylan had been recording in. After Paul Simon had left Bob Dylan took it upon himself to add it in one take, which was cited as the reason why it is a bit on the sloppy side.

If it's not true, then I guess it just goes to show how much traction these apocryphal stories can gain. To be fair I have had a few examples where I've been having a one way argument with the TV when some documentary or commentator has been talking about a mythological event in the music world.

The most recent one I can recall was someone misrepresenting something that happened in the Nick Broomfield documentary about Nirvana/Kurt Cobain. Can't remember what it was exactly but it was blatantly untrue and easy enough to find the original documentary to prove it.

On a totally unrelated subject, people keep on doing similar things with technology. They keep saying that reimplementing vintage computer systems on Field Programmable Gate Arrays is a form of emulation. It's not. But I guess it's another example of a falsehood being able to propagate around the world faster than the truth can put on it's footwear

 

[thejuice]

The most recent one I can recall was someone misrepresenting something that happened in the Nick Broomfield documentary about Nirvana/Kurt Cobain. Can't remember what it was exactly but it was blatantly untrue and easy enough to find the original documentary to prove it.

Was it the myth that Kurt Cobain lived under a bridge? To be fair Cobain wrote a song about it but it was self mythologising. He didnt live with his biological parents at some point in his youth though, he stayed with family, I believe.

 

[Mr. Stevens]

Huh, that's kinda weird because I did hear that Bob Dylan added it on a documentary in the early 2000s too. The story was that it was recorded in the same studio that Bob Dylan had been recording in. After Paul Simon had left Bob Dylan took it upon himself to add it in one take, which was cited as the reason why it is a bit on the sloppy side.

Any idea which one? Wikipedia doesn't mention anything on the page for the song.

 

[MildredHubble]

Any idea which one? Wikipedia doesn't mention anything on the page for the song.

Oh wow, it was so long ago, back in the early days of digital TV when we had a channel I think was called BBC Choice (eventually became BBC 4), I suspect it was on there. It had animations that looked kinda like the London Underground. As far as I remember it was a series that focused on the relationship between various bands and musicians, but I only saw a couple of episodes, the last one I saw was about Lou Reed, the Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol and David Bowie. It was like a family tree if that makes sense.

But what it was called and where it aired, I can't be totally sure. I never looked it up as I had heard it was Bob Dylan from at least two sources, I just accepted it as fact.

There's been various times though that I've seen these kinds of documentaries and they've gotten things wrong. I sometimes wonder if it's an anti plagiarism measure.

If you are sure it was someone else, I'm perfectly willing to accept you are right I just talked to my dad as I'm sure he saw the series too and he felt like he'd also heard it was Bob Dylan that created the guitar overdub, but since I had introduced an element of doubt, he wasn't 100% sure.