Forgive my ignorance, but when did Prince first beging using samples as a significant element of his songs?

By "significant element", I'm excluding things like Zappa's "Bizarre!", the marching feet in Free, or the snippets of Batman dialogue he used to accent songs on that soundtrack.

In other words, I'm not talking about brief clips of spoken dialogue or sound effects that appear for a moment in a song.

Rather, I'm talking about sampling music and making that the backbone of a song (looping it).

Was it on the Diamonds and Pearls album?

Tell me how U wanna b done is a "whole" song made from just a sample from The Continental.

NoSwan said:

Tell me how U wanna b done is a "whole" song made from just a sample from The Continental.

That was after Graffiti Bridge and Diamonds and Pearls.

LoveGalore said:

Graffiti Bridge was the first album using samples as a core element of the song. Specifically, Release It and Tick Tick Bang.

Oh yeah, I forgot about those two songs. Thanks for the reminder!

LoveGalore said:

Graffiti Bridge was the first album using samples as a core element of the song. Specifically, Release It and Tick Tick Bang.

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Theres also "Funky" recorded in '89

erik319 said:

Revolution81 said:

LoveGalore said:

erik319 said:

Lovesexy used samples. Batman really used samples.

I think the OP pointed out that he's looking for samples lifted from other songs that form the basis of a new song rather than pastiche samples like you see on Batdance or the sound effects you hear on 1999 and beyond.

Yes, that's correct.

I'm not asking about sound effects or dialogue snippets that are used for brief moments in a song.

I'm asking about sampling music and making that the backbone of a song, by looping it or whatever.

On the Nude Tour he heavily sampled James Brown's Get On The Good Foot at some of the encores, when he performed Brother With A Purpose and Testin Positive For The Funk

I think we are going for samples from other artist's songs? This first I remember hearing is the bass line in "7' - I know it's a sample but I cannot remember where it is from....

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Batman

As I've explained a couple of times above, I'm not talking about sound effects, Zappa's "Bizarre!", movie dialogue, or any other momentary, non-musical clips used to accent a song. If that were the case, then we could go back to the sound effects on 1999 (e.g. the marching feet on Free).

I'm asking about building a song around a looped sample of music. Unless I'm mistaken, nothing on Batman fits that discription.

[Edited 8/7/22 17:13pm]

invinciblehobo said:

LoveGalore said:

erik319 said:

Lovesexy used samples. Batman really used samples.

I think the OP pointed out that he's looking for samples lifted from other songs that form the basis of a new song rather than pastiche samples like you see on Batdance or the sound effects you hear on 1999 and beyond.

Years ago someone who was on here detailed how Batdance were 3 or 4 songs (Rave 89 songs and Anna Fantastic tracks) stitched together with movie samples in it to make it. So Batdance doesn't use pastiche samples the complete thing is 3 or 4 songs edited into one.

JorisE73 said:

LoveGalore said:

erik319 said: I think the OP pointed out that he's looking for samples lifted from other songs that form the basis of a new song rather than pastiche samples like you see on Batdance or the sound effects you hear on 1999 and beyond.

Years ago someone who was on here detailed how Batdance were 3 or 4 songs (Rave 89 songs and Anna Fantastic tracks) stitched together with movie samples in it to make it. So Batdance doesn't use pastiche samples the complete thing is 3 or 4 songs edited into one.

Sure, but that's more of a mash-up, isn't it?

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs, but with Batdance, Prince took the tapes (or digitial recordings) of complete sections of songs and spliced them together. I suppose you could characterize that as sampling, but that's not really what comes to my mind.

When I think of forming a song out of samples, I imagine using some ditigal means to record a small snippet of a song (perhaps only a measure or a few measures) and then looping it while adding new instrumentation and vocals overtop.

Compare the processes for creating Batdance with the process for creating Tick, Tick, Bang:

With Batdance, he took a minute-plus of one song, edited it onto a mniute-plus of a second song, and so on, unitl he'ed spliced together four minute-plus segements of four songs. Then he just tossed some movie dialogue on top.

In contrast, with Tick, Tick, Bang he recorded a few seconds of music, hit repeat so it would loop, and then added other instruments and vocals overtop tof that to create a new song.

[Edited 8/8/22 9:02am]

FrankieCoco1 said:

From May 1988, “Escape” (a.k.a. “Escape (Free Yo Mind From This Rat Race)”) comes to my mind. It contains samples from the song “Glam Slam” and the introductory lyrics (‘Kick drum pounds on the two and four, all the party people get on the floor’) were from “Rebirth Of The Flesh”. I did also think about Rearrange and Lady Cab Driver, but not really sampling as you put it. Also “Eye No” uses large parts of “The Ball” but again not for me sampling in the truest form.

Yeah, Eye No definitely didn't "sample" The Ball. It reused the STEMs with a new vocal track. If you were to define sampling that way, then you'd have to say The Glamorous Life was sampled because Prince added a new vocal track to the STEMs (swapping out his volcals for Shiela's).

LoveGalore said:

Did some people here completely miss the Bad Boy Records era? Famous for basing new songs off the beat of an old song? Why does this seem so tough to parse here? lol. In the US, "sampling" is more often used to describe the process above - taking the beat of one song and writing new lyrics overtop. So, they looped a sample of Diana Ross's "I'm Coming Out" and wrote new lyrics to create "Mo Money Mo Problems". Prince took the beat of Hendrix's "Little Miss Lover" and sang the lyrics to "Tick Tick Bang" over it. "Batdance" is a completely different fucking thing. Both sampling, but not the same execution whatsoever.

Thank you. YOu're explaining it better than I am.

The other things people are referencing may tachnically be sampling, but they aren't what I'm asking about. I"m talking about the process you described, where you copy a bit of existing music and make it the base for a new song. Having a one-second clip of Michael Keaton saying "Viki Vale" isn't the same thing.

FrankieCoco1 said:

FrankieCoco1 said:

Let’s Work (Dance Remix) “contains sampled clips from Private Joy, Annie Christian and Controversy, the first time a Prince song sampled another of his songs.” https://princevault.com/i...t’s_Work Noticed this from a comment by djtunderfunk on this thread: https://prince.org/msg/7/448712 And some more things about Prince sampling himself on here: https://prince.org/msg/7/410395

No, that's not what I'm talking about. "Let's Work" has momentary snippets used to accent a song (as @Lovegalore describes above). It does not loop a musical element to form the backbone of a song.

In other words, within "Let's Work" there is a three-second snippet of "Private Joy".

In contrast, the song "Tick, Tick, Bang" is based entirely on a looped drum sample. It's not a snippet use for a brief accent -- it's the entire goddamn song.

Do you see the difference?

[Edited 8/8/22 14:20pm]

lurker316 said:

The synclavier was one of the first sample machines. It is used, amongs other things, for all the samples you mentioned that Prince used to, well, make his songs worse.

.

It is, amongst many other tracks, used quite prominently on It, to the point where it defines the song. (the orchestra hits) Prince never went quite to the extremes that you saw in some of the earlier hiphop, where they essentially made remixes of songs with some rapping over it and sold it as new songs. (and get of my lawn you kids! )

mediumdry said:

LoveGalore said:

Did some people here completely miss the Bad Boy Records era? Famous for basing new songs off the beat of an old song? Why does this seem so tough to parse here? lol. In the US, "sampling" is more often used to describe the process above - taking the beat of one song and writing new lyrics overtop. So, they looped a sample of Diana Ross's "I'm Coming Out" and wrote new lyrics to create "Mo Money Mo Problems". Prince took the beat of Hendrix's "Little Miss Lover" and sang the lyrics to "Tick Tick Bang" over it

That;s exactly what he did in Batdance.
The middle portion after the guitar solo is said to be a sample of a different song that he put different lyrics on for example (sure it's not really lyrics and mostly voice samples and Electric Chair and We Got The Power lyrics, but still)