The other week, I was at lunch with my colleague, Toby King, and the song "Super Freak" by Rick James came on. He wondered out loud if that song would be widely acknowledged as a classic, had it not been for M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This." In 1990, Hammer sampled the accompaniment music from "Super Freak" and used it as his own backing track to rap over.
Toby, who was 18 when "U Can't Touch This" was released, said that he was not aware of the song "Super Freak" until it was revealed to be the source of M. C. Hammer's sample. At the time of writing, the music video for Rick James's "Super Freak" has had over 14 million views on YouTube.
Many supporters of copyright reform claim that things like sampling, mashups, and remixes bring old, forgotten songs back into public consciousness. I can't say if that's true or not in the case of "Super Freak," but I think there is some validity to that sentiment. For example, in 1991, few people remembered a twenty-year old song called "Alone Again (Naturally" by Gilbert O'Sullivan. The song was a number 1 hit for six weeks in 1971, but faded from memory rather quickly. It was quickly brought back into the spotlight, however, when Biz Markie used it as the basis of his track, "Alone Again." O'Sullivan's record label sued Markie's label, one of the earliest and most famous sampling lawsuits. Was Markie's use of O'Sullivan's material indeed damaging to O'Sullivan's 1991 record sales? Or did Markie's song actually spark people's memories into recalling the older, forgotten song?
Would "Super Freak" have 14 million YouTube views today if M. C. Hammer hadn't introduced it to a whole new generation of listeners in 1990? Unfortunately, there is no way to empirically test this. Although, I witnessed a similar situation in action with a different age group earlier this week. A student of mine referenced the Flo Rida hit "Right Round," and another student mentioned that it was based on Dead or Alive's song, "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" from 1985. The first student had never heard the referential song, and was introduced to it that day, much to his excitement. Do remixes hurt or help the songs they reference? Let me know your thoughts!