Who Sampled (dot com)

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Here's a good site for wasting time on (much like imdb.com or tvtropes.org): www.whosampled.com

I'd be surprised if nobody's mentioned it on this forum before, but if you don't know what it is, it's a database of music that has borrowed samples from other music.

The "most sampled" artist I have come across is (perhaps unsurprisingly) James Brown, with 3,204 songs on the database having sampled him.

The biggest "one hit wonder" seems to be The Winstons, whose "Amen Brother" has been sampled in 559 tracks on the database.

The Beatles have been sampled 200 times, Kraftwerk 240 times and Funkadelic 216 times.

The most sampled classical artist seems to be Beethoven (47 times). Unless you count, say, Ennio Morricone (88 times).
Pachelbel's Canon in D Major has been sampled by 26 tracks on the database.

It annoys me, but at the same time interests me how artists make money out of sampling other people's work which in turn gets sampled by someone else ad-nauseum.

Cool site. I must nitpick, however, and point out that not every sample mentioned is an actual 'sample'.

For example, on Aaliyah's page, it mentions that 'Try Again' contains a sample of 'I Know You Got Soul', by Eric B. and Rakim. However, 'Try Again' doesn't sample any portion of the recording of 'I Know You Got Soul'; instead it just features Timbaland rapping two lines that are borrowed from 'I Know You Got Soul' in modified form.

I'd sooner call that a reference to the older song. In the album sleeve, things like this are often called 'interpolations' in the track credits information.

</nitpicky mode off

one argument for reducing copyright laws to increase creative commons is that the material looses value over time, but just as MGM studios can sell old vintage b&w films for millions, two chinese boys wearing yao ming jerseys can lipsing a backstreet boy song and command more viewers then MTV. so there is always value, and even if it is free, opensource, or in the creative commons, there is still a profit to be made on it. A random 80's track that only gets airplay in a smokey dive bar could be big money to the ears of dipset if they see potential in it.