Hide And Seek

Remixes of popular songs have been around for years. Various DJs and other creative mavens have take the original song, then extend and manipulate it into something fresh.  There are probably hundreds remixes to club hits like “Crank That” or “Stanky Leg.”

Covers have been around even longer. The band Boyce Avenue, does solely that- cover other artists hits. The band has 5 “volumes” of songs, ranging from Chris Brown’s “Forever,” Oasis’s “Wonderwall,” and Madonna’s “4 Minutes.” Bands and albums like this are seemingly commonplace.

Sampling is also gaining popularity. There are artists like the infamous Girl Talk, who straight up makes his downloads free due to lack of permission from the original artist, and then there is the self proclaimed, “Girl Talk’s hot cousin,” Super Mash Bros. These type of bands make their living out of creating insane new works from samples of popular songs and classics.  Girl Talk’s 4 minute, 15 second song “What It’s All About” samples 35 different songs, rearranged into a brilliant new hit.

With all these variations becoming ever more present in the music community, it has gotten harder to tell what’s original and what’s not. Sure, it’s easy when the bands preface by stating that it is their presentation of the work that is original, not the lyrics or melodies, but then there are cases that aren’t so simple.

I was updating my iPod yesterday, and just for giggles I took a look at the 100 most popular songs. Most of the time when I go to iTunes, I am on a mission. I know what I want, and don’t need to spend time looking through what other people at the time seem to be enjoying. As I was going through the top 10, the song at number 4 was unfamiliar to me, so I took a moment to listen to the thirty second clip. The first fifteen seconds were of an upbeat and catchy hip-hop song. Then at 15 on the timestamp, I started singing along, even though I had never heard Jason DeRulo’s “Whatcha Say” before. The chorus of this supposedly “new” and “popular” song was from Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek.”

I mean, I love this song. I liked the Imogen Heap song years ago, and I love this new spin on it, but when I looked up the artist, Imogen Heap is only mentioned in comments by listeners, not actually in anything official on the iTunes page, which leaves me to wonder, from a copyright standpoint, is my new favorite song illegal? I googled it searching for answers, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any credible sources saying it either is or is not some sort of infringement. I know if I were an artist, I would be humbled that someone else thought my work was worthy of repeating, but the corporations don’t feel the same way.  With samples being unaccredited in new songs, such as this, its like finding out the real artist is a game of hide and seek.

Front Page News

-Katie Gerbes