Techno icon Kevin Saunderson created some of the most sampled sounds and recognizable songs around, but apparently upon hearing “Beat Me Back” by Supernova, he’d heard enough. Saunderson believes strongly that song is basically nothing more than a filtered loop of his 1987 classic “The Sound” and he’s putting both songs out there for everyone to hear and decide for themselves.
Grab his classic original from his website here.
Visit his SoundCloud page to check the Supernova version and see what you think. The download link there is live so he’s basically giving away their track too. I guess that puts the ball in their court in terms of suing him for giving away what he considers to be his track in the first place.
Here’s the full text of his open letter on the subject:
Dear friends, fans and members of the music industry
Today I’m giving away as a free download one of the productions I am most proud of:
“The Sound” – Reese & Santonio (1987, KMS Records)
Click Here To Download Now From My Website
I recorded “The Sound” back in 1987 and released it on my own KMS Records label. It was a massive hit at New York’s Paradise Garage and in Chicago and of course Detroit. Once it hit the UK it became one of the earliest Detroit anthems all around Europe, a huge underground record across the globe – a true desert island techno track. It is such a special record to me because it was one of my first really successful productions and I hope that you all will enjoy this free, fresh digital download of my original 1987 version.
The reason I have decided to give this track away for free is because of a situation that recently developed involving the unauthorized sampling of “The Sound” by Italian producers Giacomo Godi & Emiliano Nencioni (Supernova) in their release “Beat Me Back” on Nirvana Recordings. It came to my attention that they are licensing and selling, with considerable success, this track which is nothing more than a continuous loop of the main hook from “The Sound.”
For me to hear ‘Supernova’ taking an extended loop of “The Sound” and claiming that this is their own original composition and production is both dishonest and disrespectful. My first thought was that they were perhaps naïve, but as they have apparently been recording together since 2002 this seems unlikely. In any event this is completely unacceptable, we cannot continue to let this kind of wholesale rip off go unchallenged and tolerate “artists” who completely sample recordings, add nothing of their own and then release the results as their own work.
I have a huge affection for sampling, it’s how some of the most inspiring and ground breaking tracks of our times were created. We’ve pretty much all sampled records at some time, and cleared the sample so we can use it on our releases, but it is just not cool to take someone else’s music, create a big old loop of it and then put your name on it and try to have success entirely off the back of another artist’s efforts. This really has got to stop. For this reason, I have uploaded the Godi/Nencioni version of “The Sound” to Soundcloud so that you all can download this for free if you so wish. These producers and their record label should not be profiting from my back catalogue… this is not their track to sell.
LISTEN TO THE RIPOFF TRACK HERE
Peace
Kevin Saunderson – KMS Records, Detroit USA
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by URB.COM/URB Magazine and jorge, Disco Bingo!. Disco Bingo! said: RT @URBmag: URB.COM: Kevin Saunderson calls out rip off of "The Sound" http://bit.ly/fRcED7 #URB [...]