make predictions about what will be in/win magazines' end of year polls - 2003...

"But Chris I still think you're missing the point. The use of recognisable samples in Under Construction is not the result of Missy and Timbaland wanting to make music like they used to dance to and going to the most obvious records on their shelves. Rather, they're deliberately chosen to trigger the most frequent recognition for the most number of listeners in order to make a point about the specific nature of Missy and Timbaland's nostalgia - a nostalgia which is repeatedly explained to be not theirs alone, but a collective nostalgia. Collective nostalgia by its very nature revels in the overly familiar, because it gets by on cultural touchstones that "we" can take for granted as having shaped everyone's awareness. That's why heaps of people go to eighties revival nights as Madonna or Cyndi Lauper or Michael Jackson, but no-one goes as the drummer from The Minutemen (so far as I know!) - what's the point?

Likewise, for Missy and Timbaland, using unfamiliar samples would unnecessarily obscure the nature of the album's retro-fetish - it would bog the approach down in an overly loaded understanding of what their eighties hip hop "golden age" actually was, rather than what it felt like to someone like Missy who, strictly speaking, was probably too young to have an incredibly intimate knowledge of the source material. And it's only really the feeling that the duo are trying to evoke - the samples are largely decorative, and often their retro qualities exist in deliberate contrast to still-very-futurist grooves. In contrast most other current "golden age" hip hop shies away from obviousness in samples but boringly champions an aged + authentic approach to groove construction.

Ultimately I think the retro samples on Under Construction are used in a similar manner to the the way pop songs are used on the 2 Many DJs album, which is pushing an idea about pop as much as Missy is pushing an idea about hip hop. As both are essentially "arguments" as much as they are records, it only makes sense that their creators would cite the most recognised and persuasive precedents in support of their position."

While I can't make the exact same argument about "Fix Up Look Sharp", in Dizzee's case the "so much else" is his rapping, which is captivating even without any musical backing - in that sense the entire groove is the "surplus", almost throwaway. So you're half-right in that regard Rollie, except of course that you're totally ignoring the role of Dizzee's rapping. One should regard "throwaway sample backing" as playing the same role as "deliberately simple instrument-playing" in that it has two purposes - one) it's rushy, exciting stuff that operates on an entirely different plane to any boring ideas of "creativity" that you and Chris insist on peddling; and two) its deliberate lack of "craft" in one sense serves to highlight the presence of a totally different sort of craft (Dizzee's capabilities as an MC).

Explain what you mean by "mattering". In what sense does it not "matter"?

The verdict is still out on Dizzee for me though...my immediate reaction was negative, but it has grown on me. I still don't see whats so great about "I Luv U" though.

So wait...what exactly DO you think Missy's doing?
I don't see how Tim is overintellectualizing this at all...

Still, I see what you say about the purpose of Under Construction. But what's the point of her seemingly taking the same approach with this new album? Or Timbaland with his and Magoo's Under Construction 2 album?

This is a battle of personal preference, it seems. Personally, there's no point to the whole 'retro revival' concept. If I want to hear De La Soul, I'll listen to De La Soul. I don't care if they are trying to make a statement. Their whole music shouldn't be based completely on building upon the past.

This is pretty ironic, considering that you consider almost all hip hop albums of the 90s to be "full of filler".

And Rollie, the thing is, they AREN'T completely based on building on the past. Timbaland's beats are anything BUT reliant on the past - which is what makes the context of the use of "retro" sampling so cool. If he was doing entirely sample-based production a la Prince Paul, it'd be one thing....

life's too short to argue with morons.

or maybe just too much of mine.

(chris ott exemplifies old-pfork fear of body to a remarkable extreme -- dance and have fun? i'd rather sleep!) (if this had some bangsian self-loathing w/r/t the utter stupidity of this thrown in it could still make a cool article tho)

also chris Timbo is the main creative force behind Missy production. also do you hate all songs with I V IV after Louie Louie? if you're going to write a new song, why not use a new chord sequence? and all these records use the same instruments! if you're going to write a new song, why not invent new things to play it on?

also rollie, for pfork's "rap dude" (or one of them) how can you hate sampling so much? you do realize this invalidates most "old-school" rap far more than modern stuff, right!? "fuck eric b. and rakim -- they just stole from james brown, maaaan!"

really, what are you, eighty-five years old or something?

also if you don't rock the bufu you can't claim the bling.

christ, actually please never use that word again! (or at least until you listen to a b.g. or big tymers at the least album IN FULL)

He was spittin fire while you were still wearing training blinders.

I said that earlier, Sterling. Read the thread first. I like sampling. Just when it's done right. My thing is about how it's somehow extra legitimate to sample a really well-known piece over something more obscure for nostalgia's sake. I don't really get that line of thinking. Sampling should be used to bring a new light to music that wouldn't be heard normally, not some sort of nostalgia light tower.

Timbo is one of my favorite producers. In most cases, his forward thinking approach is refreshing. But still, his records with Missy Elliott somehow irk me with a sense of 'let's remind them of this'.

Whatever, this argument lost it's point awhile ago.

the key is the shock-cut silence between the 'big beat' beats. offends only the virtuous! if that little affront to the Forces of Tasteful Progess gives you a sour-lemonade face then, well, you know which side you're on i guess.

I guess you're talking abt dance music in the 'divorce music from dancing' (though every record creates some kind of psysiological reaction but it may not lead to what we know as dancing): even so, surely its reasonable to make the argument that, as record is released for home consumption (that is one of its functions) (passive listening) then it may not work as that.

The mistake is concretizing "danceability" into a definite property rather than a tendency that is present in varying (and ocasionally indectable) amounts in all music. Even my depiction just then is wrong because it suggests you can somehow quantify the amount of danceability of any given music; styles of music which often seem impossible to dance to from an outsider's perspective (gabba, drum & bass etc.) would suggest that it's actually about a level of compatability between the music and the dancer's body. ie. danceability is not a property, but praxis, something we do. It's like there's a hermeneutic horizon where the technical properties of the music mesh with the dancer's ability to interpret those properties physically.

I heart Tim and Geeta, btw.

Why? It is, after all, the best thing they've done since "OK Computer"

Here's the thing I don't understand....you guys are acting like he just took the beat from Run DMC (re:I forget the name of the original sample..."take me to the mardi gras"?) and used it flat out...but he didn't. He worked it into the music and incredibly forward thinking beats that he'd already created in a clever and creative way. He's not just biting, he's really using it to great effect. When I hear those drums, I immediately think "Peter Piper," and its a really cool affect. A call of nostalgia that fits Missy's vibe perfectly. I mean, look at her videos; her whole steez is that she's a new millenium b-girl, with style from the 80s plus some sort of futuristic shit goin on.....

Ha ha Mitch I was thinking of bringing up Since I Left You too (especially the bit with the bassline from "Holiday") but I pheared that it would be a huge invitation for Chris and Rollie to miss the point again.

Rollie's position wrt to sampling is the very essence of Mark S's reformulation of "rockism" - wherein the problem with such a position is that it ultimately undermines the fundamental elements of the style it seeks to defend. Just as rockist approach wrt rock music impliedly casts rock as inferior to classical/jazz etc, Rollie's demand for new/obscure samples adopts the same line of thinking which considers the act of sampling itself to be inherently uncreative; after all, the act of sampling is fundamentally about using bits of music that already exist, both materially and in the memory of music listeners.

As ddrake points out, Timbaland/Missy's new-found love of sampling is a direct corollary to their emphasis on unusual production approaches. Like the other factors which tend to induce a return to sampling (new genre, new technology, new performance style), their old skoolism is all about recontextualising the old within the context of the new. I don't think it's really feasible to maintain that tracks like "Gossip Folks" or "Play That Beat" or even "Bring The Pain" sound the same as the tracks they're referencing.

Obv. we can boil this whole argument down to whether you choose to care about which samples are being used or what's being done with (and against, and around, and alongside) them. In my opinion, discussing Missy entirely in terms of which samples she uses is the equivalent of pointing at someone in the street and saying "Oh my God, did you realise that underneath your clothes you're entirely naked!?!"

"Still, I see what you say about the purpose of Under Construction. But what's the point of her seemingly taking the same approach with this new album? Or Timbaland with his and Magoo's Under Construction 2 album?"

The tracks I've heard from Under Construction 2 seem to run the gamut of Timbaland's styles - Indian, electro-bass etc. Retro is just another style he can throw into the ring. Meanwhile the tracks I've heard from This is not a Test (which is not many, and then only once) don't seem explicitly old-skool so much as deliberately raw and unpolished: lots of enormous farting bass and really chunky beats, it's actually kinda unplaceable, like EPMD meets Public Enemy meets current crunk (and this is ignoring the obvious example of "Pass That Dutch", which stills more from the Diwali riddim than anything else)*. I'm not sure if the point is really "retro" anymore so much as loud, obnoxious club music. I suspect that Missy wants to downplay the production skillzor side of the equation in order to focus attention on her (increasingly surrealistic/silly) MCing, ie. continuing the process that began with "Work It". Certainly she seems to be moving away from the R&B side of things; whereas before she pitched herself between Lil Kim and Aaliyah now she seems to be pitching herself between Fatman Scoop and Busta Rhymes.

* I have to assume that you guys would absolutely detest Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Welcome Home" - that's like fifth-hand pillaging going on!

So how about, say, Soho's "Hippy Chick" or Credit To The Nation's "Call It What You Want" then? Smacks of lazy bandwagon-jumping tokenism from where I'm sat.

Uh, quite.

I love "Hippy Chick"! Top tune!