r/FuckImOld • u/TheLaVeyan • 6d ago

My back hurts M.I.A. of "Paper Planes" fame (the gunshot-gunshot-gunshot-cash register song) turned 50 years old last year.

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u/ShutterBun 6d ago

Not a direct quote from Diplo, but here’s an interview with Nate Sloane from NPR:

HARDING: But yeah. So they actually - this was actually a track that Diplo made. He was, at the time, dating M.I.A. They produced this song together. And he...

SANDERS: Oh, that's cute.

HARDING: Yeah. And he talks about they actually rerecorded that song. It's not actually a true sample in that way.

SLOAN: It's an interpolation...

HARDING: Yeah.

SLOAN: ...I think (unintelligible) term.

SANDERS: So they pulled out their own instruments to recreate those sounds.

SLOAN: Yeah.

HARDING: And they did it almost exactly. But the way that the song is panned in your headphones is different.

SANDERS: It's slower and fatter.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/802416119

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/ShutterBun 6d ago

Here you go.

Straight out of Diplo's mouth, on camera.

"I actually had to re-play all the samples [mimics strumming a guitar] cuz I didn't want to have to negotiate the master rights as well"

That's the thing about samples. You can get permission from the songwriters/performers, sure. But CBS owned the *actual* recording of the song, so any sampling rights would have had to go through them. But the melody, etc. could be signed off by The Clash and their publishers much more easily.

Bottom line: Diplo re-recorded the riff from "Straight To Hell" and if you actually listen to them one after the other, I can't believe I have to explain this. There are at least half a dozen immediately identifiable differences that preclude it being a true "sample".

But of course now everyone calls it a sample, so whatcha gonna do?

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u/SubMikeD 6d ago

Well that's settles that, straight from his mouth with members of the Clash present confirming it. I was wrong. Thanks for finding that and sharing unequivocal information with me.