Canada’s Skinny Puppy are a unique breed (pun intended). Pioneers of the industrial genre, they sampled and remixed sound from film and television into their gothic dance music. For years I listened to Skinny Puppy’s “Worlock” without knowing that it sampled the opening guitar riff from The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter”… Or that it sampled infamous serial killer/cult leader Charles Manson singing The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter”! Check it out here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukhpbcZy0wM&feature=related
For those that don’t know, Manson believed that The Beatles' White Album (containing the track “Helter Skelter”) contained many messages directing him to lead his followers to commit a series of murders to incite a race war between blacks and whites.
What does it mean to mash together Manson and The Beatles? What is the cultural commentary?
Also, see if you can recognize any of the films that are incorporated in the video.
Whoa now, PIONEERS of industrial? I hardly agree. But I do get your point about Worlock being a nifty mash-up of songs that play well off eachother.
ReplyDeleteFor me, remixing a song with a lot of meaning (and crazy amounts of money to appropriate) and a song with a different kind of meaning to create yet another piece... it goes without mention that sometimes the referent gets lots of attention, in this case both, and yet is not necessarily visible or audible to someone who may be familiar with it.
That being said, I really enjoy a good remix, especially when creative credit is given if a large sample is used as inspiration/base. As we've come to know that appropriation is a dangerous field...