Deconstructing Beck

Last updated
Deconstructing Beck
Deconstructing Beck.jpg
Compilation album by
Various artists
Released17 February 1998 (1998-02-17)
Recorded1997–1998
Genre
Length54:52
Label
Producer Philo T. Farnsworth

Deconstructing Beck is a compilation album released on February 17, 1998, by an anonymous group posing as Illegal Art. The album is a compilation of 13 tracks created completely from samples of American musician Beck which, by artistic intention of the group, were not approved by Geffen Records, and its release set off a large scale legal battle between the two record labels which attracted worldwide media attention. According to cultural critic Steven Shaviro, the release of Deconstructing Beck served as a challenge to the music industry since Beck's discography prominently features samples, and paved the way for new media art that became oriented around the limitations of copyright law.

Contents

Background and legacy

Deconstructing Beck is a compilation of 13 tracks created by various artists. The album was produced by the anonymous sample recording label named Illegal Art which was created by an anonymous person(s) calling himself/herself/themselves Philo T. Farnsworth. The album is, as a whole, created completely out of samples taken, intentionally without authorization or payment, from Beck's discography; when the release of the album was announced in February 1998, Illegal Art made great efforts to inform Beck's lawyers. Beck's lawyers immediately threatened to sue on the grounds of copyright infringement which resulted in a high-profile controversy, but Beck's lawyers and publicist were never able to take legal action since the identity of Philo T. and the actual location of Illegal Art were both anonymous. [1] [2]

Reappraisal

Cultural critic Steven Shaviro's article "Deconstructing Beck" uses the album as an avant-garde turning point regarding the use of appropriation and sampling in the music industry today. Shaviro's article takes issue with the legalities of sound/image ownership and copyrights. Shaviro's utilization of the controversy surrounding Beck and Deconstructing Beck bring questions such as "who owns the images and sounds around us?" and "what does it mean to own a sound?" to the surface. Beck's own music is created from various beats and rhythms of all different genres of music from multiple artists. However, Beck's recording company Geffen financially backs Beck and is able to pay the royalty and copyright fees of the samples Beck utilizes in his own songs. Since Beck's songs are paid for and legal he is considered "eclectic" and an artist of appropriation. However, those who do not have record label support and cannot afford copyright fees and continue to appropriate others' music are seen as thieves and criminals. This issue calls into question the issue of music ownership. Since recording companies leverage the money for copyright fees and serve as "watch dogs" over their clients' work, do they ultimately own music? This situation also leads the reader to question how these copyright legalities limit artist creativity and at what point is a song considered brand new? "As the contrast between Beck and Deconstructing Beck suggests, the practice of sampling can take many different forms and has a wide range of implications and meanings. [3]

Others have since reappraised the album's value as a legal experiment as well as a musical project. [4]

Track listing

No.TitleCreated byLength
1."Paving the Road to Hell Pt2"Mr. Meridies3:37
2."Puzzels & Pagans"Jane Dowe2:26
3."Killer Control Enters Blackhole"Huk Don Phun4:47
4."Stuck Together, Falling Apart"Steev Hise5:53
5."Void Transaction"The International Bankers4:09
6."Burning Today's Memory"Corporal Blossom4:24
7."So Cal Weevil Dream"Mr. Meridies4:04
8."One Beck in the Grave" Evolution Control Committee 3:16
9."Eggs Eggs, Arms Legs"Spacklequeen2:59
10."Doublefolded"Hromlegn Kainn6:09
11."Carpet Tunnel Syndrome"Mr. Meridies4:59
12."Bust a Move"Jane Dowe2:59
13."Fat Zone"J. Teller4:27

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beck</span> American musician (born 1970)

Beck David Hansen, known mononymously as Beck, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his experimental and lo-fi style, and became known for creating musical collages of wide-ranging genres. He has musically encompassed folk, funk, soul, hip hop, electronic, alternative rock, country, and psychedelia. He has released 14 studio albums, as well as several non-album singles and a book of sheet music.

<i>Mutations</i> (Beck album) 1998 studio album by Beck

Mutations is the sixth studio album by the American songwriter Beck, released on November 3, 1998, by DGC Records. Though less commercially successful than the preceding Odelay, it won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jimmy Iovine</span> American entrepreneur and former music executive

James Iovine is an American entrepreneur, former record executive, and media proprietor. He is best known as the co-founder of Interscope Records. He became chairman and CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M, an umbrella music unit formed by Universal Music Group in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asylum Records</span> American record label

Asylum Records is an American record label, founded in 1971 by David Geffen and partner Elliot Roberts. It was taken over by Warner Communications in 1972, and later merged with Elektra Records to become Elektra/Asylum Records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DGC Records</span> American record label

DGC Records was an American record label that operated as a division of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, which is owned by the Universal Music Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DreamWorks Records</span> American record label

DreamWorks Records was an American record label founded in 1996 by David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg as a subsidiary of DreamWorks Pictures. The label operated until 2003 when it was sold to Universal Music Group. The label itself also featured a Nashville, Tennessee-based subsidiary, DreamWorks Nashville, which specialized in country music and was shut down in 2006 then moved to MCA Nashville. The company's logo was designed by Roy Lichtenstein and was his last commission before his death in 1997.

Illegal Art is a sampling record label that was started in 1998. The label gained immediate notoriety from legal threats surrounding Deconstructing Beck, a compilation made exclusively from sampling Beck's music. This was followed by two other theme-based compilations, Extracted Celluloid and Commercial Ad Hoc. All three were co-released with Negativland's Seeland Records label and sponsored by RTMark. After these theme-based compilations, Illegal Art focused on artist releases. One of the most popular artists on the label is Girl Talk, who in 2006 released his third album, Night Ripper, to critical acclaim on the label, earning a Wired magazine Rave Award a year later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White label</span> Type of vinyl record labeling

A white label record is a vinyl record with white labels attached. There are several variations each with a different purpose. Variations include test pressings, white label promos, and plain white labels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bootleg recording</span> Unauthorized recording or release

A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. Making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging. Recordings may be copied and traded among fans without financial exchange, but some bootleggers have sold recordings for profit, sometimes by adding professional-quality sound engineering and packaging to the raw material. Bootlegs usually consist of unreleased studio recordings, live performances or interviews without the quality control of official releases.

<i>Elton Johns Greatest Hits Vol. 3</i> 1987 greatest hits album by Elton John

Elton John's Greatest Hits Volume III is the twenty-seventh album released by English musician Elton John. Released in 1987, 10 years after Elton John's Greatest Hits Volume II, the compilation album features his greatest hits from 1979 to 1986 and was made available only in the United States and Canada. All of the songs featured had previously been released on a previous album.

A recording contract is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording act, where the act makes an audio recording for the label to sell and promote. Artists under contract are normally only allowed to record for that label exclusively; guest appearances on other artists' records will carry a notice "By courtesy of ", and that label in question may receive a percentage of sales through publishing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Discipline Global Mobile</span> Record label

Discipline Global Mobile is an independent record label founded in 1992 by Robert Fripp and producer/online content developer David Singleton. DGM has released solo music by Fripp as well as work by various affiliated musicians and bands including King Crimson, The Vicar, the California Guitar Trio and others. The label has offices in Salisbury, England, and Los Angeles, California.

<i>Night Ripper</i> 2006 studio album by Girl Talk

Night Ripper is the third studio album by American musician Gregg Gillis, released under his stage name Girl Talk on May 9, 2006 by Illegal Art. It is a mashup album primarily composed of samples taken from other artists' music, while also incorporating minor amounts of original instrumentation recorded by Gillis himself. Produced as one seamless piece of music before subsequently being broken into individual tracks, Night Ripper was composed by Gillis in a period of around eight months, during which he divided time between production of the album and his work as a biomedical engineer.

<i>Greatest Hits 1976–1986</i> 1992 greatest hits album by Elton John

Greatest Hits 1976–1986 is a collection of hits by Elton John released in the United States only by MCA Records in 1992. It replaced an earlier compilation, Geffen's 1987 release Elton John's Greatest Hits Vol. 3. This was necessitated because of a shift in the control of copyrights and a resulting reshuffling of compilation albums.

Antediluvian Rocking Horse (ARH), formed 1994 St. Kilda, Australia, is an audio project maintained by two core artists credited as DJ2 and DJ3. DJ2 is Paul Wain, a sculptor and graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts. DJ3 is Susan King, a collage artist, writer and anti-copyright advocate. The composer Ollie Olsen was also a member. The project produces music and soundscapes that are entirely recycled from other recorded works.

Difang Duana and Igay Duana, Chinese names Kuo Ying-nan (郭英男) and Kuo Hsiu-chu (郭秀珠), were Amis husband and wife farmers from Taiwan who became known as a folk music duo who specialized in traditional Amis chants. Their most recognized work is a performance of a traditional Amis Palang song, alternately called "Weeding and Paddyfield Song No. 1", "Elders' Drinking Song", and "Jubilant Drinking Song", or Sapiliepah a Radiw in the Amis language. The song was recorded by a French government project and EMI, and was subsequently sampled by the musical project Enigma for their international hit single "Return to Innocence". Accusations of unintentional usage without permission were settled out of court.

Plunderphonics is a music genre in which tracks are constructed by sampling recognizable musical works. The term was coined by composer John Oswald in 1985 in his essay "Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative", and eventually explicitly defined in the liner notes of his Grayfolded album. Plunderphonics is a form of sound collage. Oswald has described it as a referential and self-conscious practice which interrogates notions of originality and identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Negativland</span> American experimental music group

Negativland is an American experimental music band that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! track, while their record label is named after another Neu! track. The core of the band consists of Mark Hosler, David Wills, Peter Conheim and Jon Leidecker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sampling (music)</span> Reuse of sound recording in another recording

In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sound effects or longer portions of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or slowed down, repitched, looped, or otherwise manipulated. They are usually integrated using electronic music instruments (samplers) or software such as digital audio workstations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DJ Swamp</span> American DJ

Ronald K. Keys Jr. aka DJ Swamp is an American hip hop DJ, turntablist, producer and vocalist. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. He currently resides in Los Angeles, United States. In 1996, he won the title of US DMC Champion, his first year entering the tournament. Swamp toured with Beck for four years and later broke away into a solo career with his release "Never is Now" in 2001. Alternative Press gave "Never is Now" an 8/10 rating.

References

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/06/arts/the-pop-life-tweaking-beck-with-piracy.html
  2. https://www.mtv.com/news/2h5eti/illegal-beck-samples-provoke-cease-and-desist-orders
  3. Shaviro, Steven (June–July 1998), "Illegal Art: Deconstructing Beck", ArtByte, vol. 1, no. 2, archived from the original on 6 March 2016
  4. https://www.stereogum.com/1981952/ghetto-blastin-disintegrating-deconstructing-beck-20-years-later/columns/sounding-board/

Further reading