It's a fairly wide topic to cover succinctly, but this board is devoted to songs which feature samples from other songs (legal or otherwise ), legendary remixes of songs and dance tracks, and in general music acts who became famous for recycling other, sometimes obscure, works, slapping a dance beat or new vocals to it, and making millions from the result (or thereabouts). One such example is the recent hit which samples Tubeway Army's "Are Friends Electric" and adds a vocal track over it. It's actually quite good, in my opinion. Some cases are not actually covers, but sometimes the tune is either directly sampled or referred to subtley in the "new" vocals or thereabouts.

Is it a good idea to have people use samples from others' carefully crafted pop songs and the like? Such a thing has made people very mad in the past, but others such as Fatboy Slim seem to make a living out of it, provided they give the original sources full credit. Perhaps a more contentious area is in hip-hop and rap, where old pop tracks are scoured, savaged, and reincarnated with the aid of a (possibly angry young) (wo)man's vocals riding shotgun with it. Not that it does too much harm in some cases - the reaction to Notorious BIG's death later gave Sting another award and lots of money thanks to Puff Daddy (now P. Diddy) and Faith Evans. And Dido's certainly not complaining now...

We can include dance remixes of various originals into this board, if you wish - unlike sampling or covers, think of it as the original song with new seasoning and added starters. It can be said that many songs or even bands wouldn't be where they were without the likes of a good old upbeat remix to get the toes tapping. (Just ask Cornershop. ) Are remixes the right way to breathe new life into old songs? I can't think of many examples where people have complained about a particular mix of their song, but I'm sure you guys out there can...

I can't name who did a "rap" version of the song ... but the Stevie Wonder tune Passtime Paradise was gutted and re-done in a rap format recently. (only portions of the chorus remained in the song) Being a fan of the Stevie Wonder song, I felt a little bit violated by the rap version. But that's just me ... as songs go, the re-do wasn't bad, it just rubbed me the wrong way.

That was Coolio's "Gangsta Paradise". Hate to say it, but I like that song. I have the CD. (I also have Stevie Wonder's Songs In the Key of Life.)

Yeah, that is a good song.

Another trend a few years ago was to rap along to a few strains of classical music. I think Coolio did this at some point to the tune of Pachelbel's "Canon in D" to reasonable effect. Someone else also did something similar that year with Bach's "Air on the G String". [I mention both because I remember having vivid dreams while those tracks were playing from my radio. But that's a topic for another board...]

Come to think of it, there was another rap-pop hybrid that year which sampled (slightly different) the opening to Dire Strait's "Why Worry" which I also liked a bit.

That one Jessica Simpson song *hey! Quit hitting me! I'm in high school with teenybopper peers, dammit!* takes its background music from a John Mellencamp song. I'll remember the names later...

I believe the song you're after, CC, is "Jack and Diane" by John Mellencamp. I know which Jessica Simpson song you mean, and the name of *that* one escapes me. (Guess some things endure better than others, as I'm sure you'll agree. )

Well, I mentioned on another board the dance remix of Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation" currently being used on a World Cup-themed advert. I do believe that this is the first time someone had done an actual dance remix of one of the King's songs, as opposed to a cover version (which everyone and their dog seems to have done so far).

Cynical-Chick - I think I'm in love with you.....
.....is the title of the Jessica Simpson song you're talking about previously.

My kids occasionally listen to Radio Disney. There's some group that does a song "kitty cat", using Buffalo Springield's "For What It's Worth" as the background music.

Well, it's been a good year so far for the remixer and sampler. Two songs, "Freak Like Me" by the Sugababes and the Junkie XL remix of Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation" shot straight to #1 in the UK this year. Then again, both songs did ride on the back of adverts as well.

Interestingly, the Sugababes song actually originated from a less legal mix which took the backing music of the Tubeway Army's "Are Friends Electric" and added it to the vocals of another singer (whose name escapes me) and was entitled something along the lines of "We Don't Give A Danm About Our Friends". It was after much backstreet plaudits (no, not that type of backstreet) that the remixer decided to do a new version, this time with established popsters Sugababes on vocals, and releasing it as a commercial single - the new version has some notable differences to the, er, original.

"Soldier of Fortune," Black Sabbath. The background music is *so* ripped from "Stairway to Heaven."

Benn mentioned in another board: As far as remixes in general go, I've really have yet to hear one I thought made the songs that were remixed better or added an interesting twist to the original.

I would say that Norman "Fatboy Slim" Cook's remix of Cornershop's "Brimful of Asha" made the original a little bit better, or at least gave that particular band their big break. To be honest, apart from "Lessons Learnt from Rocky I to Rocky III" I haven't heard much from Tjinder Singh's band since. Another Fatboy Slim remix which I feel added to the original was his remix of Groove Armada's "I See You Baby" (but then again I don't know how many dance music fanatics exist in Nitcentral).

I can't say I'm a fan of dance music. I do like a lot of it. But I'm not a big follower of it. This may be why I haven't heard a remix I've thought was better than the original version.

Has anyone heard this Madonna song "Hung Up"? I'm almost sure that the background is a sample from an Abba song but I can't put my finger on which one. Can anyone help me out?

"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)". Her use of the sample borders on plagiarism, if you ask me.

"Music is forever." - Paul Simon

Kid Rock's new song All Summer Long samples from both Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama. On the Youtube page for the music video some haters accuse him of "stealing" or "ripping off" those two songs even though the video clearly shows a DJ spinning a Warren Zevon album and the refrain in the song features the lyric "singing sweet home Alabama all summer long."

It's a nice mashup of the two classic rock songs and a nice sweet more tame song from Kid Rock who's more often known for white-trash, dirty, harder songs. That said tame by Kid Rock standards may still offend. The song does have lyrics about "smoking funny things" underage drinking ("whiskey out of the bottle") & underage sex ("making love out by the lake").

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwIGZLjugKA

In a reverse of how sampling is often done (which is often rap artists taking samples from pop songs) punk rocker Travis Barker did a remix of Flo Rida's song "Low" where he added an electric guitar and drums. The video is just of him drumming and looking pretty bada** while doing it. I like the origional version of "Low" as well, even though lyrically it is an entire song about a girl shaking her ample "booty" on the dance floor. It's a good sounding song and always gets the girls to shake their's on the dance floor. It's also a pretty clean song, with nothing any more offensive than Sir Mix A Lot's own ode to the rear end "Baby Got Back."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnzXTGn3i58