My favorite version is by artist Machine Gun Kelly, called “LTFY (One More Time).” “One More Time” is used throughout the song, mostly as the beat, tune, and background vocals driving the song.
I think this song sampling is innovation and transformative. Firstly, the original “One More Time” is listed under the Electronic/Dance genre. The remix song is definitely a rap, given texture by the layers of the original song behind the words of the rap artist. Machine Gun Kelly has made sure people know the original song (it’s even in the title) and they brought the song into a different genre (Hip-Hop/R&B).
Not only does the original song become a background layer for the new song, it has also been edited to fit the background of a rap. The beat has been transformed into something which clearly resembles the original yet is more stuttered, giving the whole song a remixed sound from the start. Anyone remotely familiar with the original song would instantly know this song is a remix. Without “One More Time,” this song would lose basically everything that makes it a unique and interesting rap, but it still remains that this song was edited and the rap lyrics written. Machine Gun Kelly reused a Daft Punk song, giving it the band’s own twist by messing with key elements of the song and adding new lyrics and meaning.
Another interesting thing to note about this remix is that the song’s content is vastly different from the original. The original song is about celebrating, dancing, and having a good time. Tis remixed version is about drinking, women (mostly referred to as “bitches”) and drugs. “One More Time” takes on a whole new, “hardcore” tone within the remix.
According to Laurent LaSalle, maker of “RIP: A Remix Manifesto,” authorship has been around since the printing press; copyright was first introduced as an incentive to create, and only lasted 14 years. Then everything went into the public domain. This changed during the 20th century, when copyright was extended to the life of the author plus 75 years, mostly thanks to Disney. Suddenly, ideas that corporations monopolized became off-limit to the public for over a hundred years.
The problem is, it’s almost impossible to create something that hasn’t been made before, that doesn’t draw from the past.
According to copyright laws, authorship of “One More Time” belongs to Daft Punk. Unless Machine Gun Kelly gets permission to use this song in a commercial setting (the song can be bought in many places), it cannot legally resample this song. For a song which draws heavily on only one song, they probably did get permission legally. It wouldn’t be too difficult. However, a song with various other songs would have to track down each artist and ask them permission—which they could legally refuse for any reason. Copyright laws see authorship as being the creator of something, something that can be protected and sold, and stolen.
Lawrence Lessig, writer of “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy” says about copyright:
Copyright is, in my view at least, critically important to a healthy culture. Properly balanced, it is essential to inspiring certain forms of creativity. Without it, we would have a much poorer culture. With it, at least properly balanced, we create the incentives to produce great new works that otherwise would not be produced (xvi).
However, it’s clear that copyright laws needed to change with the evolution of the Internet and other technologies which allow us to “create and distribute music”—but they didn’t change (24).
LaSalle claims that with the increase of these technologies, the creative process became more important that the product, as consumers became creators. Originality, therefore, is not creating something that’s never been made before; it’s creating something new from things that were made before. Sousa, whom Lessig quotes, was a composer afraid of “that people would be less connected to, and hence practiced in, creating that culture” (27).
Lessig points out that Sousa believed “the part where commercial entities profited from creative works needed to be regulated more” (33). But there need be no laws against “getting together to sing,” a critical part of amateur culture (23).
So where does Machine Gun Kelly’s song come in? Is it an amateur, sing-songs-in-the-street type of work, or a work from which commercial entities profit? In the end, “the industries that now dominate the production culture” are in charge and have the final word (33).
I agree with Lessig in that permitting amateurs to create music our way, through remixing and sampling, will allow both sides to benefit. Why can’t we find a way to allow amateurs to create music, while also making sure the (filthy rich) music corporation earn money too? There must be a way we could all benefit; if we could find this middle ground, our culture expressed through music would become richer, freer, and truer.
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