Timbaland - The music stealer

Post by **Pabl0z** » 13 Jan 2007, 23:55

I just wonder... How could this just be coinsidence?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4KX7SkDe4Q

BrontoX · Post by **BrontoX** » 14 Jan 2007, 00:02

Nice find. Do you know if he got sued?

prince1142003 · Post by **prince1142003** » 14 Jan 2007, 00:13

Unless the original artist had some sort of official ownership rights on the song, there is nothing illegal about what was done.

SliM_880 · Post by **SliM_880** » 14 Jan 2007, 03:41

oh sh*t... its obviously copied...
nice find

Post by **Morty** » 14 Jan 2007, 05:03

It's not really that special tho... Sampling is pretty common in electronic music, both hiphop and trance (probably all other genres as well)... The difference is that sampling in trance sounds good, while hiphop beats just get incredibly boring...

Post by **Pabl0z** » 14 Jan 2007, 16:59

But those artists usually ask permission to use the original artist's track for sampling.
In this case the original artist has not been contacted by anyone.
And it's not like the original compositions here are changed beyond recognition. It sounds the same.

xHaZxMaTx · Post by **xHaZxMaTx** » 14 Jan 2007, 17:02

Pabl0z wrote:But those artists usually ask permission to use the original artist's track for sampling.

Yeah, Vanilla Ice got roflpwned by Queen.

Post by **Pabl0z** » 14 Jan 2007, 17:39

Here's a couple of posts the original artist made on another forum:

I came here to clear up some things...

Seems like many of the people writing here didn't even bother to listen closely to 'Acidjazzed Evening' (referred as AE from now on) and 'Do It' (referred is DI from now on), or are just plain tonedeaf. Maybe it would help if I'd explain what those songs have and don't have in common. Grab your headphones, because they really help spotting the stuff in DI that got sampled!

First: the basis of the song DI is the intro from AE. If you want to spot the similarities, then don't listen AE longer than 15 seconds, which holds 16 bars of music (no, DI is not "quoting" AE - 1-2 seconds would be quoting). There is not a single part in DI that is not based on these 16 bars. In the chorus of DI, the sampled part is cut into half and only the first half of it is being used, played over and over till the next verse, when the whole sample is being played again.

AE repeats it's intro-theme at some point, but mainly it goes to another directions. If you have hard time finding the resemblance between AE and DI, then don't listen AE for more than 15 seconds. This is crucial.

What was sampled?
For DI someone sampled the intro of GRG's C64-version of AE, but with disabling the bass-channel. The bassline was reconstructed in DI - no, It's not "totally different" than AE's bassline as someone said. It's just a stripped down version, with octave intervals removed (fe. A2-A3 -> A2) and 2-3 notes left out. There are 6 different chords (of which many are repeated) in AE's intro, jazzy kind of chords that for most I dont even know their names, but I'll list them here to show that it's not a typical pop-song chord-progression (actually if someone can find a similar chord-progression, I'll give him a beer or two):
G# C C# F | A# C# F G# | G# C# D# F | F# A# C# F | A# C D# G# | G# C D# F
Each column represents a list of notes used in each chord. It's not the actual chord-progression, but a list of the 6 chords (most popsongs have around 3-4 chords all together) used in the intro, but I think you get the point...

The chords are arpeggiated, which means that the notes in the chord are being played at the same time, but being rapidly from lowest note to the highest and not at the same time. This is a crucial point for anyone who can differentiate a clear note from a dog bark and because chords are not usually played like this, unless you're a superfast heavy metal guitar player, J. C. Bach or a 80s homecomputer-soundchip with only 3 channels available.
But in mainstream pop music? No chance.

The melody?
Listen to AE's intro few times and then listen to DI with headphones on. It's all there, playing in the background. The melody that Nelly sings is kind of a variation of the melody in AE's intro, but the original melody is also there, in the background of DI! Here's another crucial point; they didn't remove the original melody, but only lowered down it's volume and placed another melody (which Nelly sings) on top of it. I'd call this counterpoint, if the the people behind DI wouldn't be such hacks. If you want to verify my claim about the melody, then don't pay much attention to what Nelly is singing (or the drums) but everything else what is there; bassline, "background-melody" and the arpeggiated chords.

There you have it. 16 bars of music, a whole verse, which became about 4 verses in the hands of another.

I can't discuss the legal issues here. Let's just say that Big Record Companies are surely the works of The Devil.
Spread the word...

-tempest

I'll make one more remark and then I'm out:

"First of all you have to prove that Timbaland heard your track before he made his track. "

Acidjazzed Evening competed in Oldschool Music Compo at Assembly 2000 in Helsinki, infront of more than 4000 people (voters) and won the competition. There are good documents on this. You can of course believe that the whole event never took place, but would require heavy dose of self-deluding and not doing your research properly.

And no, I haven't given the copyrights of AE to anyone. Competing with a piece of music/graphics/whatever hardly ever involves giving up the copyright.

And for the one who talked about "similar chordprogression and bpm": did you read my post? There's 16
bars of melody aswell. Take 16 bars from any any memorable theme and see/hear what I mean...

"Why would he steal from you? He would lose credibility and cash."

You'll have to ask him. I know the whole things sounds very impropable... or does it really? Do we really know how often things like these happen? My song was easy to spot, because of the "C64ish" chipsounds I used, but what about songs that use "regular" instruments? And even if record companies pay compensation for the original composer they "borrow" from, they still might earn more from it than they lose. Loose-album has sold 2,5 million copies already and it's not just about the record sales, but also about touring, gaining loads of money by filling big arenas etc. Nelly Furtado is a product.

...and from what I see, Timbaland didn't lose cash but gained cash!

One more notice: I wouldn't recommend Gloom's video, atleast for "skeptics". He misses some key points there, uses bad set of examples - for example he even uses the later variation of the AE's intro's melody and not the actual intromelody. That's why he has to cut it off quicky, because the end of the melody is a bit different from the one that got sampled in DI. I do have to admit that the final demonstration in the video, with both songs played simultaniously, is charming =). The video might work as a good hint, but don't expect it to prove anything. Do your own research/listening. (There's a good set of mp3-examples as torrent, by some unknown individual.)

-tempest

Stereo · Post by **Stereo** » 14 Jan 2007, 23:26

Timbaland sucks at singing anyways. Hope he gets sued bigtime.

S2000_Skyline12 · Post by **S2000_Skyline12** » 15 Jan 2007, 00:02

Timbaland doesn't sing. He produces songs for people, Like The Neptunes...But they don't steal lol

Post by **Pabl0z** » 15 Jan 2007, 00:53

Well Timbaland does have his own songs too.
So he does sing if you consider rapping to be a form of singing

.

xHaZxMaTx · Post by **xHaZxMaTx** » 15 Jan 2007, 01:21

Nah, that's just talking with background 'music'.

S2000_Skyline12 · Post by **S2000_Skyline12** » 15 Jan 2007, 02:17

Yeah thats pretty much all he does to mark a "song" that "he" produces

Post by **Morty** » 15 Jan 2007, 04:48

He does sing a little on Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous" tho... But that's probably just an exception

Post by **Pabl0z** » 19 Jan 2007, 03:18

Just some links to more clips and whatnot:

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/i ... d-a-thief/

Look at the "another clip" in that link ^^.

SKYLINEHUNTER55 · Post by **SKYLINEHUNTER55** » 05 Feb 2008, 22:40

He only has one verse to sing in Give it to me.

Post by **Morty** » 06 Feb 2008, 16:42

Even worse... Timbaland feat. One Republic - Apologize. Great song, but Timbaland as main artist?

He doesn't even talk in the background, he just pushes a few buttons in the video. Sure, he produced it, and probably made the beat, but that's not enough to make him the artist... On the charts here, it even says Timbaland - Apologize, One Republic isn't even mentioned. I find that very weird, and a little frustrating...

S2000_Skyline12 · Post by **S2000_Skyline12** » 06 Feb 2008, 23:50

He's the shown as the main artist cause it's his album =P Timbaland Presents...Shock Value

Post by **Morty** » 07 Feb 2008, 00:20

S2000_Skyline12 wrote:He's the shown as the main artist cause it's his album =P Timbaland Presents...Shock Value

Ok... Except I'm not talking about the album, I'm talking about the single...

I could accept "One Republic feat. Timbaland", but I don't feel he should be listed at all (except as producer, but nothing more than that). At an absolute most, "Timbaland presents One Republic". But not "&" or "feat.".

SKYLINEHUNTER55 · Post by **SKYLINEHUNTER55** » 07 Feb 2008, 21:11

At least there all good songs- well some some of them are- Give it to me, The Way I are and Apologize.

S2000_Skyline12 · Post by **S2000_Skyline12** » 08 Feb 2008, 03:28

Morty wrote:
S2000_Skyline12 wrote:He's the shown as the main artist cause it's his album =P Timbaland Presents...Shock Value
Ok... Except I'm not talking about the album, I'm talking about the single... I could accept "One Republic feat. Timbaland", but I don't feel he should be listed at all (except as producer, but nothing more than that). At an absolute most, "Timbaland presents One Republic". But not "&" or "feat.".

No. Cause it's his album, that's it. If it was One Republic's then it would be "Apologize [Produced by Timbaland]", But since it's on his own album and plus, he gives the background vocals too

amritchail · Post by **amritchail** » 08 Feb 2008, 04:53

I got the shock valve album.I have to say he's a good producer.

NFSUnlimited.net

Timbaland - The music stealer

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