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Take it away, John Cameron. Cameron. I know that's, that's cheesy off the charts, but back then it was hilarious. And reached number three on the Billboard singles charts. Goodman was taken to court for copyright infringement, but he was left off the hook when a judge declared that this was parody and therefore a brand new composition. He'd have hits like this as late as 1975. Such sound experiments, more sophisticated ones obviously, were also carried out by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa and others. But the first musician to use a sample in the modern sense was probably Michel Bernholk. He was a French musician who released a song in 1968 called Burundi Black, which featured an excised recording of 25 African drummers from Burundi. Sampling got easier through the 70s and early 80s with new electronic devices. There was something called the computer music melodeon in 1976, which was used by Stevie Wonder for at least one album. Then came bigger machines like the Fairlight and the Sinclavier, which cost tens of thousands of dollars. Cheaper, more powerful machines soon came along. There was one From Toshiba in 1981, another from EMU Systems a few years later, and most importantly for the time, the Akai MPC 60. Very powerful and very popular with people like Trent Reznor and a huge chunk of the hip hop world. Then came this song, a number one hit around the world that was constructed almost entirely of samples. While there is some original music in here, much of what we hear was taken from no fewer than 29 other sources. 29 other records, ranging from old recordings to movie trailers. This is Mars and Pump up the volume. Pump up the volume. Pump up the volume. Pump up the volume. Dance, dance. Okay, I think we're now clear on the definition of a sample. It's an ethically and legally legitimate tool for songwriting and composition as long as you get permission from the original composer and pay them, two fees have to be paid. When you sample somebody, there's the master recording rights, which is the actual sound recording that you're using, and the publishing rights for use of the composition itself, the people that own that composition. So what's an interpolation? This is a re recording or recreation of something from another song without actually excising it from the original. Basically you're. Well, you're covering part of a song inside your new song, and you're doing it very, very exactly in other words. You're copying the writing, not copying the recording. This makes an interpolation cheaper than the sample because in this case you only have to pay the rights for the composition, not the master, because you are making a new master. Interpolations have been used a lot in pop and hip hop. Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars interpolated Oops Upside youe Head in the song Uptown Funk. Mariah Carey's fantasy interpolates Genius of love from the TomTom club circles by Post Malone interpolates Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. And despite what you may have thought or heard, Vanilla Ice did not sample the Queen David Bowie song Under Pressure. For Ice Ice Baby, that is a recreation, an interpolation. And such a thing is okay, providing you acknowledge it and pay for the privilege. If you don't, you step over a very fine legal line into plagiarism, which is theft. Ask Noel Gallagher about some of his legal issues. Here's an example of a by the book interpolation. In 1981, Kraftwerk released a song called Computer Love. Fast forward to the summer of 2005, Coldplay released their X and Y album. It features the song Talk and it interpolates Computer Love. Yes, they did it knowingly and yes, they got permission. In fact, Kraftwerk shares in the songwriting credits and has made some, well, millions of dollars in royalties. All of us are saying, sure, you can use those nine notes. Pretty good deal, right? You could take a little picture of something you see in the future. So there you go. That explains the difference between a sample and an interpolation. Both those terms will come up again in a second. Because when the Rock Explainer returns, we'll look at why artists are selling their song catalogs for big money.

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A (16:56)

Welcome back to the Song Explainer, an attempt to sort out some of the confusing or inexplicable things music fans have had to deal with. Here's the next question. Why are so many artists selling their music catalogs for tens of millions and even hundreds of millions of dollars? Well, let's start at the beginning. When an artist writes a song, he or she has the copyright on it. In other words, no one can copy that song in any form until the artist is compensated. To help with that, the artist signs a publishing deal in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. It's usually 50, 50. The publisher polices all use of the artist's song and makes sure that the appropriate royalties are collected and paid. This includes everything from radio airplay to record sales, to streaming fees, to covers to all manners of public performance. And that's where the money in songwriting really lies. Publishing. The publishing rights, they are extremely valuable to the artist. Publishing is different from holding the master rights. If you hold the master rights, you own the actual finished recording, which is different from the rights to the songwriting. When you sign a record deal, the label almost always 100% of the time retains the master rights. This gives them ownership over physical and digital copies of the final recording. You see the difference? Now There are exceptions, U2 and Taylor Swift among them, but it's very rare for an artist to own their master rights. But back to music publishing. Since the mid 2010s, there's been a rush by a well financed group of companies to buy up the publishing rights held by artists. I've been maintaining a running list of such deals, and there were hundreds of them. Bob Dylan sold his publishing to Universal Music Publishing for something more than $300 million. Bruce Springsteen got over $500 million from Sony Music Entertainment for his, and Queen got over a billion dollars in their deal. There are companies like Primary Wave, Roundhill, Concord, and Hypnosis. They're all doing the same thing. Now, you're probably asking, why would an artist part with their life's work? Well, there are a couple of excellent reasons. First, let me explain why a company would enter into such a deal. Music is valuable. Great songs will always be great. Therefore, they in theory, should generate royalties for a very, very long time. That makes music a viable long term investment. Point two, Entering into such a deal gives the artist financial freedom with the proceeds of the sale of their publishing. They now have enough money to last them the rest of their lives. They can use that money however they want to record new music. Investments, activism, philanthropy, estate planning. How are these catalogs valued? Well, the buyer will look at the artist's work and determine how much it generates from all sources over the course of a year. Then they'll negotiate a multiple of that number. Five times, 10 times, 20 times, whatever the annual figure, and that becomes the purchase price. The artist then gets a pile of cash that they would have earned over the next X years. This is their money. They would have probably earned it anyway. They're just getting all that money up front now while they're still alive. See, the way copyright works in most countries is that an artist or their estate retains control of a song up until 75 years after the artist has died. In the case of multiple songwriters, the rights to the song stays with them until the last surviving member dies, plus an additional 75 years. When that time expires, the song goes into the public domain and no more royalty payments are required to anybody. It is up for grabs. Anybody can use it in any way they want. So let's say Bruce Springsteen died in 2025. He is the sole songwriter on Born to Run. That means Sony has until the year 2100 to make back its $500 million investment in Bruce's music and then return profits to shareholders before the song ends up in the public domain. So you see, these companies are playing a very long game. Now, back to the artist. If they keep their publishing, they're looking to get a royalty check in the mail every, what, six months or so? Governments look at that sort of revenue, the same as a salary. So that means the artist is taxed at whatever income tax rate applies. And that could be 35, 40, 50%, depending on where you are. However, if the artist takes all that future money all at once, governments consider that to be capital gains. Taxes on such things are generally much lower. In the US for example, that might be as low as 15%. In the UK it tops at around 20%. So what would you rather pay? 15% tax or 50% tax? It's a no brainer. Now, I should point out that Canada has a capital gains rate of 50%, which explains why we don't see a lot of Canadian musicians cashing in unless they're residents of the US or the UK or some other jurisdiction with lower taxes. Artists who have jumped on this bandwagon include the Killers, Blondie, Devo, Silver Chair, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sting, Motley Crue, Z, Todd Def Leppard, Alison Chains, Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, the estate of Joey Ramone, Judas Priest, Imagine Dragons, and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of others. Another great example of this is Derek Whibley of Sum 41. The band is done and he wants to move on to make sure he and his family live comfortably for the rest of their lives. He sold his publishing catalog, all the sum 41 songs and anything else he's been involved in. And the buyer was a company called Harborview. He lives in Las Vegas, which means he's in a tax jurisdiction with a low capital gains rate. Whatever amount he received, although the official number was never made public, it's somewhere north of US$30 million. That means Derek will be just fine. Some 41 and still waiting from 2002. Derek Whibley wrote the song, but is no longer the owner of the song. He sold the publishing rights to Harborview Equity Partners. So how is Harborview and all these other companies going to make back their investments? Well, there's radio airplay, video airplay, streaming, public performances, other artists covering those songs, licensing of those songs for movies, television and commercials. And revenue will come from samples and interpolations. Here are some other questions you might ask. Let's say a group sells their catalog. What happens when they play live? Do they have to ask permission to perform what was once their own stuff? No, that's covered by the publisher and performing rights organizations. Can the buyer use the songs for absolutely anything? Well, generally no. There will be clauses in the purchase contract that stipulate what the songs can and cannot be used for. For example, use of a song in a partisan political context may be forbidden. Another artist may write in a clause saying that the song can't be used for advertising of alcohol. There are a myriad of other possible exceptions. What about any songs the artist may write and release after the deal? Generally, those songs are not covered by the sale and stay in the possession of the artist. Here's an example. In 2020, Imagine Dragons sold their catalog to Concord Music Publishing for a reported, wait for it, $100 million. They have since released two albums, Mercury Acts 1 and 2 in 2012 and Loom in 2024. Whatever they earn from songs like this and all the albums going forward is still theirs. Now let's talk about the money these big companies have shelled out. They have made big investments. Now they will actively encourage all those things that we talked about in order to wring out all the money they can from these songs. And it is in their best interest to keep these songs alive and in the mind of the public for decades and decades to come. Next question. Have you ever looked at the songwriter credits of some songs and see 10, 12, 15 people credited as having something to do with the song's creation? The old norm was 1, 2, maybe 3 attached to the writing of a song, sometimes to all the members of the group. Get a piece. They all contribute equally, at least legally. So what's the deal with having more than a dozen people contributing to one song? It comes down to record labels are in the business of selling noises to the public. These noises have to be as appealing as possible to the widest number of people as possible. Hit making is extremely difficult, and the public is very fickle. You can never predict what is going to be a hit. Therefore, the labels want to cut their risk of having a flop as much as possible. And how do you do that? Well, you bring in as many songwriting experts as you think you need. Much of today's music is written by committee. Labels and publishers round up teams of writers, producers, and those known as topliners who specialize when it comes to conjuring up melodies and lyrics. They might also call in people who do nothing but create beats. Instead of just one or two people working on a song, a group of experts are hired. Some work together in a room and others work remotely, sending digital files back and forth. The thinking is, the more writers you have, the better chance you'll have of getting a song with big hooks, memorable verses, and overall commercial appeal. These pros are brought together in songwriting camps where everyone works together crafting hooks for the chorus and the melodies and the bridges. Whatever the song needs, they will put it together. The best bits are taken, and as contributors, all those involved get a piece of the songwriting credits. In some cases, producers, managers, and the artist themselves might get credits. That's usually to cover some kind of legal contingency, or maybe it's just goodwill to keep everybody happy. Whatever. The bottom line is that much of today's music is extremely industrialized and almost factory like in its construction. And it works. In the case of Drake, his 2018 song Nice for what was written by 21 different people, and they were brought in all for different reasons. Two were even dead. And because of a sample of a sample contained within the song. All eight members of Wu Tang Clan were or making money from this song. What used to be simple and solitary is in many cases a group effort. But we still have people like Billy Corgan, who writes everything himself. One more explainer to go and I might need your help fleshing this one out. Upgrade your laundry routine with a durable and reliable Maytag laundry pair at Lowes. Like the new Maytag washer and dryer with performance enhanced stain fighting power designed to cut through serious dirt and grime. And what's great is this laundry pair is in stock and ready for delivery when you need it the most. Don't miss out. Shop Maytag in store or online today at Lowe's. Limu and Doug Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings vary unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts here's one more topic for this edition of the Rock Explainer. I'm going to float this, but if you have better information, please let me know. It all begins with an email from Ray Whatever handedness you are, we all get that you do the bulk of the detail work with that hand. You eat with it, write with it, throw a ball with it, and use it as the primary go to for most things in life. So can you tell me why it is that a righty guitar has the right hand doing the strumming or plucking while the left hand, your worst one, is doing all the business with chording and such. I guess he means soloing. Seems to me that the left hand is doing the busy work while the right hand is taking the easier job. Should a right handed guitar not have the neck on the player's right to do the detail work with a dominant hand? That's the good question. I never thought of it, but let me take a stab at it. Today's guitar is the descendant of thousands of years of stringed instruments. We can go all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia for instruments like the lyre and the ood. Many hundreds of years later we had the lutes and the vohela, the first proper guitars or at least instruments that we would recognize as guitars today started appearing in the 16th century. The modern six string dates to the 18th century and by the third decade of the 20th century, the electric guitar shows up. Throughout all those iterations, the skill to playing was found in the right hand. As players picked and plucked the strings, the left hand was left to form chords. There was also a long standing stigma against Southpaws against lefties. They were associated with bad luck and even witchcraft. So to avoid being shunned or stoned or burned at the stake, southpaws worked to become right handed. This is something that continued in schools right through the middle of the 20th century. As your left handed grandfather may have told you, he had his knuckles whacked by a nun with a ruler every time he picked up a pencil to write with his left. The guitar solo, the idea of playing something crazy on the fretboard with your left hand is something that maybe dates back to the 1890s with the rise of the flamenco guitar, which was among the very first to showcase the guitar as a solo instrument. The first guitar solo on record in popular music might have been performed by Eddie Lang, a jazz guitarist of the 1920s and 30s. We can also look at blues players like Blind Mellon Jefferson. What we'd recognize as a rock solo first appeared in the 1950s. Credit might go to Scotty Moore on Elvis Presley's Good Rockin Tonight in 1954 and or Chuck Berry on the song Maybelline in 1955. Since then, we've had guitar heroes ranging from Jimmy Page to Eddie Van Halen to Jack White using their left hand to play those intricate solos. Dave Mustaine of Megadeth once told me he considers his left hand to be the money maker. There are exceptions, of course. Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain are all lefties and either use guitars specifically made for lefties or in the case of Jimi just turned his right handed guitar upside down. But in these situations, they use their dominant hand, their left, the same way a righty would use theirs to strum and pluck and pick at the strings. Their right hand, the non dominant one, forms the chords and goes wild for solos. So it's a mirror image situation. Bottom line, Ray, is that the guitar and all the instruments that came before it were built with right handedness in mind because of the way they were originally played, with the right hand doing all the work and the left hand just forming chords. That and the fact that being left handed might get you executed. So that's my explanation. If anyone knows more or has a better explanation, let me know and I'll include it on the next episode of the Rock Explainer. Meanwhile, let's have a listen to what I consider to be an extremely underrated guitar solo. The guitarist on this song is Burton Avere. This guy has some serious, serious chops with both hands. This was the sixth episode in the Rock Explainer series. If you have questions I invite you to go back through the podcast archive for the previous shows, where I tackle all sorts of things that require some deconstruction and, well, explanation. Those podcasts are available wherever you get your podcasts, and they're all free. If you have anything about rock that you need explaining, let me know and I'll put it on the list for the next edition of this thing. No question is too insignificant. And for God's sake, don't think for a second that your question may be stupid. Let's get to the bottom of everything. It's always great to know why things are the way they are. Meanwhile, let's meet up on any of the social media platforms. I'm on most of them. Check out my website, ajournalofmusicalthings.com it's updated every day with music news, opinion, music recommendations. You should get the free daily newsletter too, so you're always ahead of your friends. And there's my other podcast, Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. This is where true crime meets music. Get those wherever you get your podcast too. Feedback to AlanAlancross CA with comments, questions, complaints and criticisms. I will write back technical productions by Rob Johnston. Talk to you next time. I'm alan Cross Friday, October 17 My name is Mickey Fox from the producers of Fire Country. I'm sheriff of Edgewater. A must watch new series on global and streaming on Stack tv. Drop the guns.

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