Pop will Eat itself, and its Excrement shall be as Wine
Part Two
What’s going on with busta rhymes’ ‘this means war’? The track comes
from his excellent compact disc ‘extinction level event’, and interests the
interwebmegalink on many levels. Let’s ignore mr rhymes’ wicked
rapping and extensively street activities, and move straight on to the issues
at stake here.
Firstly, then, the track ‘this means war’ samples nearly every part of
the black sabbath song ‘iron man’. Nothing particularly interesting
by itseslf, except for perhaps the extent of the plaigerism; it quotes each
riff, and replays them in nearly the same order. But, as stated above,
nothing unusual – alone.
Our second point of interest is that ozzy osbourne sings over the chorus
of the piece, to the same tune as his vocal part on the black sabbath work
‘iron man’ so many decades ago. To have the original vocalist
of a sampled band singing over the top of a looped version of a song that
they sang on over twenty years previously seems, to us, quite surReal.
To add slightly (or to detract slightly, depending on one’s point of view)
to the strange quality of the song, mr osbourne sing different words to his
‘iron man’ tune, words penned by mr rhymes.
Whose song is this?
“artists are self-inflicting culture-jamming upon
themselves, saving us the trouble; rearranging their own memetic culturewebs
and destabilising their own metastructures, leaving no-one but themselves
to sue.”
-the interwebmegalink, circa. early october 2002
If we decide to sample this track and reuse it for our own selfish purposes,
who should sue us? It is, after all, a black sabbath riff, with the
black sabbath singer; yet it is a busta rhymes track, with busta rhymes’ words.
If we turned our sample backwards, who would sue us first? That
is, which party would recognise themselves first? Is recognisability
the deciding factor anyway? Does it matter?
“instead of forcing the brain to rewire itself in
a sudden ecstatic flash, ‘bastard pop’ eases the synapses apart, letting them
gradually accustom themselves to their new, more ecologically-diverse, memetic
repertoires.”
-the interwebmegalink, circa. early october 2002
Kylie minogue, amongst others, has recently been riding the bastard pop
bandwagon, singing one of her well known pop meisterworks over a sampled
and looped backing track of someone else’s music. This interests us
as much as the rhymes/osbourne case; live bastard pop, with one of the sampled
parties actually sampling herself live on stage? Bastard pop no longer;
this is consensual, married, domestic hyperpop.
Artists are self-inflicting culture-jamming upon themselves, saving us
the trouble; rearranging their own memetic culturewebs and destabilising their
own metastructures, leaving no-one but themselves to sue.
“the inevitability of pop eating itself turns out
to be its own self-cannibalistic saviour.”
-the interwebmegalink, circa. early october 2002
Soon, we will have six or seven rings of bands and producers, trying to
out-incorporate each other at once, self-similar clones all vying for the
same positions on the top ten charts; every song will sound the same, and
it won’t matter who did what.
And then, how we shall laugh.
interwebmegalink report, circa. early october 2002
