Where is the infamous Rolling Stones sample in "Bittersweet Symphony" ?

you are an idiot.

The RS riff goes:
Da-da-da, da-da, daah-da, da-da

Nothing alike! Bogus litigation, clearly.

But there's really not, that's my point. If you listen to the whole Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra (great name by the way) track, it becomes obvious around the minute-thirty-five mark. The leap from what's going on there to the main melody in "Bittersweet Symphony" is very small.

Ashcroft's collegiate romanticism (I can't make much sense from the philosophising and don't care to try too hard) just adds vocal texture. But the fact that a sample from an orchestral interpretation is turned into a rhythmic device means that the Verve did some serious creative work and means they deserve considerable credit for turning it into a hit - unless you want to argue that the Loog track was seriously likely to move any units at all without Ashcroft's intervention.

rather, it means that the verve made the simple mistake of not asking for permission for beforehand and thus forfeited their rights to have any say in the negotiation.

I believe Richard Ashcroft was allowed a £1000 'writer's fee' for his new words...

Whatever! I don't see any of you hating on Puff Daddy for what he did to Sting, oh hang on...

What's bad about these Ashcroft lyrics? Ususally he's a dick, but not so much here. I think it rocks and I did when I was 16.

HAHAHA Enrique I salute you.

"We sampled four bars. That was on one track. Then we did 47 tracks of music beyond that little piece. We've got our own string players, our own percussion on it. Guitars. We're talking about a four-bar sample turning into 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' and they're still claiming it's the same song."

Oh come the fuck on , man.

LOL

http://marlinco.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/vanilla20ice-4.jpg

:) i never heard that original sample. cool.

Embeddable version:

I like the orchestral version of that song better than the real one

I heard the original some years back and it made me scoff. I never thought of Bittersweet Symphony the same way again (not that I was that big of a fan in the first place). The Verve struck me as a bunch of mediocre poseurs from the get-go and why some people make such a big fuss over them, I can't imagine.

such a rad song + perfect at the end of 'cruel intentions'

^^^^^

i felt like that when i heard 'superfreak' for the first time.

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max otm loool was gonna doa 'cruel intentions' thread today but forgot. so dope.

David Whitaker really deserves some credit in that story, at least as much as Oldham (and certainly a bit more).

I've always felt that the Verve get kinda hosed here. Yes, the chords and supporting bgd is the Loog Oldham orchestra. But the hooks are all theirs: the string melody, the vocal melody.

However much a douche Ashcroft is is beside the point. The orchestral tune is nice -- over the top of it the Verve made a big, catchy pop tune that's some kind of classic.

uh if you take a big obvious uncleared sample like this you're pretty much begging to be sued, no matter how much stuff you add over it

Pretty sure they did clear the sample and that there was an agreed to 50/50 royalty split.

That said the best argument that this is more Stones than the Verve is the fact that neither the Verve nor Ashcroft wrote anything half as successful.

I *can* hear the main orchestral hook, even though I know it's not there

That said the best argument that this is more Stones than the Verve is the fact that neither the Verve nor Ashcroft wrote anything half as successful.

Yeah but how many people HAVE?

(I mean it was one of the biggest hits of the entire decade)

Okay maybe a 1/10th as successful? Successful at all? A top 5 hit?

the whole thing's such a joke because Jagger/Richards ripped off/stole from so many people - the idea that their manager took advantage of the Verve to reap a ridiculous legal settlement from a sample is very uhhhh waht.

but its always funny to hear people actually complain (still! after all these years!) about how sampling is stealing, not original, etc.

for one thing the Stones' version of "The Last Time" is itself ripped (completely uncredited) from the Staple Singers

Actually I guess they had a couple of other UK top 5 hits, but whatever.

lolz as I already pointed out way upthread hah

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this is a good song and i don't like the rolling stones very much

Yeah I'm not arguing that the Verve didn't get fleeced.

do people who complain about this sample complain about Eric B and Rakim looping James Brown or Dr. Dre looping P-Funk or Puffy looping the Police or or or

I'm guessing most of them do.

I think the issue here is that most people initially heard the Verve and had never heard the orchestral version of "The Last Time" and so they thought "hey that Verve song sounds nothing like "The Last Time" the Verve got completely ripped off" and so consequently when they hear the original they overreact in the other direction.

I feel like people who complain about this sample probably don't know who Eric B and Rakim are...but probably felt their heart break when they watched the "where Daft Punk got their samples from" youtube video

this is a good song and i don't like the rolling stones very much

To make a comparison, this isn't, like, Puff Daddy taking the entirety of "Every Breath You Take" and having someone sing the melody of the original in the background with a chorus. It's the CHORDS, for god's sake.

consequently when they hear the original they overreact in the other direction

yeah I just did this

t's the CHORDS, for god's sake.

lolz so we're gonna start complaining about stealing chord progressions now? you gotta be kidding

No we're not, that's my point.

ah. I wasn't sure.

It's pretty silly to be against sampling per se, but in general, I trust my own ears, and I trust other people's ears. If the original sounds too much like the thing that sampled it, or vice versa, why should the one who sampled it get any credit? I can think of other instances where I've gone back and heard the song someone sampled from and there was a pretty clear difference. This is not one of those cases. The sad fact is, everything that makes Bittersweet Symphony appealing comes directly from that sample. Stuff like the Vanilla Ice & Puff Daddy tracks are just stupid. They merely exploit the fact that a lot of folks will not have heard the originals.

The sad fact is, everything that makes Bittersweet Symphony appealing comes directly from that sample.

Severely disagree. Most of the song's appeal comes from its almost dance-like adjustment of level, additions of layers, etc.

"They merely exploit the fact that a lot of folks will not have heard the originals."

Wait you actually think there is a single human being on this planet that hasn't heard "Every Breath You Take"?

Actually, I think the percussion in BSS might be its secretest, strongest weapon.

Yeah, what most people think of when they think of that song is the string riff...which didn't come from the sample. Or the vocal parts: "It's a bittersweet..." and "Don't change/I can change."

The hooks all come from Verve. There's a good argument that they wouldn't have come up with them without the sample in the first place. But that's it.

I'd say the Stones should have gotten a third to half of the music credit. But all the credit—while it may be the "legal" thing—is neither fair no accurate.