I am not a huge fan of the song personally, not because it isn't good, but just personal preferences. I do have to say that i LOVE seeing someone draw upon different influences like this. It's fantastic. Like what kind of person is sitting around listening to country and NIN and Trap? Sounds like an interesting person to me. I love when people break out of the rigid boxes we al place ourselves in.
I was thinking about this the other day, when samples pop up in stuff. If some producer pays people to listen to thousands of hours of music and just take notes so they can walk into their sessions with a list of "cool samples" that hurts and is indicative of all the awful shit happening in music today, but if this dude is a fan of NIN, heard 34, and has been wanting and needing to fold it into something he's created since he first heard it, well, I guess that's better.
It's not the most artistic or creative sampling I've ever heard, but more people hearing NIN is more people hearing NIN, whether or not they know it's NIN.
https://www.billboard.com/articles/c...view-lil-nas-x
https://genius.com/artists/Lil-nas-xHow did the beat for "Old Town Road" come together?I had just mastered my melody game and I was trying to get more into sampling. I knew how to sample, but I wanted some crazy challenges. So I would go on YouTube trying to find really weird stuff to sample. I was searching for Beethoven or the classical stuff from hundreds of years ago. Music you normally wouldn't sample.
I found this Nine Inch Nails song ["34 Ghosts IV"] and I thought, "Damn. This shit is crazy." [Laughs]. Normally, when I sample something I chop it, filter it -- I turn it into something different. But this sample, I thought if I chopped this and filtered it, it's going to ruin it. I tried to keep as much of the originality of the sample, but I also wanted to have the trap vibe, so I sped it up. I didn't really have any country thoughts about it. It was just me trying to find a challenge for myself and randomly stumbling on a sample like, "Damn. I have to do something with this." The beat is more than a year old.
What made you decide to sample the Nine Inch Nails
LIL NAS X :
I didn’t even know about the Nine Inch Nails sample at first. After I did find out about it, it was like, “Wow, so it’s rock, country, hip-hop all in the same room.” I am a Nine Inch Nails fan, but I wouldn’t say a hardcore fan. I know their most popular hits, something like that. I know “Closer,” I know “Hurt.” Honestly, it makes me feel great that I was able to put completely different worlds together and make a song that so many people like. Almost everybody who I’ve shown this song to, even people commenting comments like, “Hey, I hate this genre and that genre, but I like this song.””
Last edited by Sarah K; 04-09-2019 at 01:16 PM.
Catching up on this after a trip and I think it's great. There's also controversy around Billboard and country music trying to get this dude kicked off the country music list because of it so I'm cheering for him right now. He's alright by me.
https://www.complex.com/music/2019/0...country-charts
I don't need to defend myself. The song is dire and the guy who sang over it doesn't have a clue. End of story.
Last edited by katara; 04-10-2019 at 12:11 PM.
It was a lot cooler when Ice Cube sampled NIN for the Westside Connection album.....A LOT COOLER
I take the Strobe Light fan record over this crap any day.
That mash-up of a song is about as interesting as his mash-up hip hop name.
I get what you're saying. Find an artist who's never sampled anyone, but I feel like the difference is that Reznor might take a noise or fragment of sound or half a second of a song or the sound of Saddam Hussain hitting a table accidentally during the trial that led to his hanging and then filter/reverse/skullfuck it until it's a texture whereas this guy is just playing a ten second loop of 34 Ghosts throughout the whole song.
Thank you, Paul.
Trent has sampled people in the past, sure. However, he chooses samples that are sonically and conceptually relevant to the music and the message he's trying to give. He also writes all his own music. Samples are used creatively and have meaning.
All Lil Nas X did was buy a song online, not crediting the producer until specifically asked to. There is zero creativity there. Zero effort.
He didn't even know about the NIN sample until later. Just knowing that Closer and Hurt exist does not make you a NIN fan.
Here is Lil Nas X elaborating on the NIN sample in his song. It wasn't really intentional. Found this out from an interview he did with Genius about his song. Interesting stuff.
Last edited by nooneimportant; 04-10-2019 at 06:47 AM.
I really disagree with the idea that there is zero effort or creativity. I think that is the whole reason this is being celebrated. Trent said that Crystals Japan unconsciously inspired a Warm Place. He literally used the drum from Nightclubbing in Closer. Do we take any credit away? No. Why? Because the whole is vastly different from the individual part.
Do I like this song? Not particularly. But good for him. Good for the people who connect with it.
And I am just going to address the elephant in the room: it would seem that some people, and I am not saying you because I don’t know you, but some people have unconscious bias that has them really contemptuous of rap because it is “black” music but very ready to justify white artists when they do the same thing. Like is this guy really doing something Trent Never did? There is a long history in this country of coming down hard on block people for trying to do something white people all the time. We could call this “sampling while black.”
I’m not saying that this is where you are coming from, but we ALL have unconscious bias, myself included, and we can’t overcome it is we can’t see it.
Just because you don’t connect with something doesn’t make it wrong.
I was kinda hoping he was a NIN fan, but... hopefully he'll look into NIN discography and gain influence from Trent/Atticus for future stuff.
I don't particularly like the song, although it is OK. What I do like about it is, the full scope of what he's done and how he has managed to catch main stream attention (from practically all media outlets). He's pretty much a kid/young adult, with what seems like a very small pool of resources, his video is from a friggin video game, the music he obviously didn't compose, from interviews he's had it just looks like he's having fun and he seems genuine.
Those are the aspects I like from this unlikely situation us NIN fans are currently in, which is.... HOW THE FUCK DID GHOSTS 34 GET CAUGHT UP IN THIS SONG(and yes I yelled that)!
Rap/country tracks are like drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth. Two flavors that just don't go together no matter how much you may try to convince yourself they do.