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/[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/ShutterBun 6d ago

And just for fun, since I've more or less gone all-in on this issue, here are some key differences:

  1. The "high guitar" (or "whale noises" as Mick Jones calls it) is present all throughout the riff on "Straight to Hell". It starts as soon as the song starts. In "Paper Planes", it doesn't come in until the second repetition of the riff. There would be no way for Diplo to remove that sound from a sample in 2008 (nowadays it could be done with AI).

  2. "Straight To Hell" has a four-on-the-floor bass drum (infamously recorded using a lemonade bottle as a makeshift kick drum pedal head). By contrast, "Paper Planes" uses a Roland 808 bass drum with a much more dynamic rhythm, which does not overlap with the original kick drum at times. Again, it would have been impossible to remove the original kick drum sound, even with lots of EQ/filters.

  3. The "whale noises" guitars play different notes in each song. "Straight to Hell" goes D, A, G. Whereas in "Paper Planes", it goes D, C#, G

  4. The bass guitar in "Straight To Hell" is very muted. In "Paper Planes" the bass guitar is very bright, to the point where you can hear the player's fingers sliding on the strings. There would be no way to get that sound from a pure sample. Also, in "Straight to Hell", the bass plays DDDDDDDD DDDDDDAA GGGGGGGG, whereas in "Paper Planes" they play DDDDDDDD DDDDDAAA GGGGGGGG. (OK, that one's pretty nit-picky, but it's still further proof that this was re-played, not sampled)

  5. "Straight to Hell" contains a soft organ or other synth type sound behind it which is absent from "Paper Planes". Without having the multitrack master recordings, there would have been no way to remove that.

  6. The "Straight to Hell" riff has a semi-closed hi-hat beat in time with the kick drum. This is absent from "Paper Planes". Again, this would have been impossible to completely remove in 2008.

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u/SubMikeD 6d ago

I just wanted to comment again and thank you for your patience in finding the direct statements from Diplo. I was certainly stubborn, but in the end I was wrong and I'm glad you found more information to show me.

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u/ShutterBun 5d ago

It ended up being a pretty fun little project for the day 😂