You rarely hear anyone cover the Beastie Boys. Is it because their songs rely so much on samples that they’re impossible to recreate legally without making a profit? How did they not get sued into oblivion with hundreds of samples used? Where do those royalties go today?
With all due respect, this couldn’t be wrong-er. Copyright just wasn’t enforced on sampling back in the Beasie Boys’ heyday, it really wasn’t on people’s radar yet. You’ll hear people say “There’s no way you could make [seminal hip-hop album] today!” due to how much it would cost to clear all the samples that went into something like Paul’s Boutique or Three Feet High and Rising.
But would a cover require the original score?
There was a famous remix of Jay-Z’s Black Album called the Gray Album that used Jay-Z’s vocals against samples from the Beatles’ White Album. It is possible that a full cover could include both new vocals and a new set of samples.
There are also cases where the sampled track can be played by live musicians. A lot of work produced by Dr. Dre can be performed by a live funk band; this was shown in his Super Bowl Halftime show. Some Beastie Boys songs had the group play as a band.
You’re right, I was misinformed
All good! Yeah, the wild west days of sampling really showed the art we could have had if sampling was licensed like song covers are.
Someone should do this on the dark web. Start a music industry on the dark web with no copyright rules and no money, just bitcoin and pure inspiration without stupid rules.
I should note that we still got more of this stuff thanks to the regular web, mostly from the early 2000s onward, once digital tools for creating and sharing got better and cheaper. But yeah, mainstream modern platforms with content matching do make sharing more complicated.
What did it say?