http://www.myspace.com/rjd2
i'm sure a lot of you are familiar with this guy. I remember hearing his name as a DJ years ago, but never knew what he was really up to. Then recently I found a link to his myspace page from dj infiniti.
I gotta say, I love his album "Third Hand". Quite a few tracks on there that I love listening to. Now, I have a problem because, a lot of "producers" or "musicians" take credit for music that actually isn't theirs. : Kanye West, including numerous other thieves. Even Timbaland is a thief. I've tracked down every single song he "produced", and every one of them was stolen. Which is not a surprise since, thats how he got his start with the night-rider theme song. A quote by Timbaland in response to an accusation of him stealing music: "Music is just notes that repeats itself." Yes, music is about repetition, but not when your repeating someone else's song. The truth is, the mathematical possibilities of music, notes- and time- are infinite. He's obviously someone who does not belong in the musician/artist category.
But RJD2... I know he is a DJ, and does sample a lot of stuff. Which is fine, as long as the samples are re-used in a creative way where the artist gets to express his emotion with those samples. I'm mainly talking about drum sounds, hits, stabs, vocal one shots, etc... "Producers" that take melodies from other songs should be thrown out the window. But supposedly RJD2 has recorded his own drums, vintage keyboard instruments, guitars, and obviously his own vocals, which I think is truly AMAZING. It takes a lot of talent for me to appreciate listening to a white guy sing melodies in the alto range. There aren't many of those guys out there that can use their higher pitched voices to sound good. Tom Petty being one of them.
now, my friend heard some of RJD2's music, and swears up and down that the melodies he sang were stolen from old songs by other artists. I haven't verified this yet, but i'm pretty good at naming that tune.
Regardless, I love listening to that album, and I like what I hear coming from his instruments, but I can't give the guy all the credit just yet. Either this guy is EXTREMELY talented in writing hooks and melodies, or i've over estimated him and he's just rehashed older songs into his own.
anybody know about how much of that album was sampled from old records?