Buffalo Gals by Malcolm McLaren & The World's Famous Supreme Team

The intro of the song is an announcement of the supreme team radio show, with multiple shout outs to various dj's and people who have called in to the show, and thusly have become affiliated with this recording. After a sampled and repeated piece of the intro vocals, specifically the word brownsville in reference to the city, and then what sounds like a tribal yell that has been echoed to infinity, a minimal beat begins, and then there are multiple samples of audio that are introduced as a layer of sonic information on top of the beat. I hear scratches of small synths, the words "three buffalo girls". scratches of the word "the beat". Then Malcolm's voice is introduced with his "three buffalo girls" square dance rap. Next there are more vocal scratches and synth stabs. An MC starts rapping and singing about midway through with a very melodic synthesizer playing behind it, almost giving a feeling of a bridge or hook. Malcom's voice returns, along with a female "uh huh" sample, and the synth hits and stabs continue. The song is concluded with a climactic repetition of the scratched "buffalo" and "dancing like a hobo" audio and a crescendo of synth sounds. This song was very nostalgic, but much of the magic from my youth has been removed and hearing the song now left me wanting that old feeling back, and strangely disappointed.

Don't (Vessel Ripley) by John Oswald

It begins in the middle of a soft, soulful croon, with a thrum of bass and gentle plinking of piano--even an angelic background chorus. Gradually, the voice begins to sing over itself, eventually coming to simply repeat “don’t” over and over in the background. The crooner continues, but his voice becomes disjointed, echoing itself. The chorus grows louder, he grows louder, unnaturally so, until there’s a cacophony as the piano goes mad. A moment of silence. The song returns, but everything is different. The crooner’s voice changes pitch, distending. All of the sounds have remained in tempo but are deeper, almost unearthly. There’s a madman on the piano, and it plays frantically, without rhythm, banging on keys louder and louder. The crooner presses on through the noise despite the fact that the pitch of his voice continues unnaturally deep, but as the piano rages at last his voice disappears and all the noise fades, in the way of piano strings’ fading vibrations after the fingers that were pounding the keys are suddenly gone. How is it that such an old, simple, soulful tune can so simply be turned into something so wholly disturbing?

Jukebox Capriccio by Christian Marclay

A needle drops onto a spinning record and someone begins to fiddle with the vinyl as it spins. The sound of sped up tape can be heard playing some sort of jazz piece. A strange ticking sound appears on the right channel of my speakers, builds, then fades out to the left channel. The screeches and scratches of the needle on vinyl and the tape running across a tape head continue as an drum beat is introduced. The drums fade out and the jazz returns. Eventually it’s a full ensemble, but it suddenly cuts out and replaced by a techno beat out of the ‘80’s. The Jazz resumes, followed by some more scratching and drumming. The song slows to the end and new sounds are introduced. A final jazz riff occurs right before an abrupt end to the piece. I sat there wondering why this strange combination of sounds had just entered my ears.

Jukebox Capriccio by Christian Marclay

The barrage of record scratching signifies each new piece in Christian Marclay’s sound collage, Jukebox Capriccio. The beginning of the track starts with the needle dropping on the record, and a few sped up records on different turntables playing simultaneously, some tracks of voices, others of musical instruments such as trumpets and saxophones. When one record ends, another begins. The record scratching being more than the glue melding the pieces of the composition together but more about finding the correct placement for the mixmaster to choose what the listener hears next. The initial speediness in the beginning of the track is brought to a comfortable listening speed, where most of us typically listen to music. While it seemed the record scratching were the only constant in Jukebox, once the record speed normalizes, there are a few tracks that noticeably repeat, such as 1980’s synth pop hit “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell. The record speed slows on approach to the track’s end. The closing of the track, while cut short, plays the iconic notes to Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In sketch comedy program. Where I have noticed the bits and pieces of the track that is familiar to me, I wonder: would another listener notice every piece to Jukebox Capriccio’s song melange?

Buffalo Gals by Malcolm McLaren & the World's Famous Supreme Team

The listener is dropped out of nowhere into the World Famous Supreme Team radio show, our DJ scratches and rattles off the radio station, 105.9 FM. We are next introduced to the Supreme Team, we hear a list of names. Then another DJ chimes in and says he has the first call of the night, its a female and he mentions her high school and in the background there is a divine soulful chant happening. The DJ continues to give shout-outs to the listeners, the last shout out is for a listener in Brownsville (Brooklyn). Then what sounds like a digital sampler comes in, cutting and repeating 'Brownsville' about 20 times, while some sort of tribal chant heavily reverbed comes in underneath and ends just before a very straight forward break beat is introduced. On top of this simple beat is the scratching of a female almost crying out a orgasm juxtaposed with a male voice sample. A female saying 'all this scratching is making me itch' sample is dropped on top of the beat a few times then an 1980's drum roll. Out of nowhere a dorky voice of what sounds like an older caucasian male comes in saying "first buffalo gal goes round the out side, round the outside" then 2, then 3 and finally 4 'buffalo gals go round the outside' ending with "dosey doe your partners". Yet another sample is introduced to the listener, this sample is of a female saying "She's looking like a hobo." We have the combination of hip-hop scratching and the doesy doe (the square dancing maneuver) and females looking like hobo's which seems odd at first, tension builds... but to the rescue a bass line drops, theres a breakdown and a smooth voiced rapper starts rhyming. The track returns briefly in the end to the line of describing the buffalo dance, but this time the nerd voice says, 'buffalo boys'. At the end of the track there is layered scratching, male and female voices, the track is coming close to ending, the beat stops and we end with the female sample: 'dancing like a hobo'.

Jukebox Capriccio by Christian Marclay

Starts with an ear-splitting scratching, like a record disc being dropped onto a player roughly and slid around. Music begins, a swinging beat with jazzy horns, but which quickly is shredded by static and screeching. The 'underlying' music ceases abruptly and is replaced by a hyper-speed (sounds like it has been sped up at least) drum groove, plowing through underneath a near-constant assault of sharp, gritty scratches. Split second cut ups of saxophone honks, jazzy horn trills, the rapid pitch changes of the scratches - then a lull of ordinary music, mysterious and coy, before furious disc scratching, blaring from all the horns and clanging from all the drums, a cacophony of instrumental sounds - sounds seeming inherently musical and harmonic in quality, but mishmashed together like this, create a bewildering soundscape that brings strong negative imagery to mind. Suddenly the track calms, a modulated, softer, less aggressive static slipping in and blending with a slow big band swing; but in a matter of seconds, just as the mind begins to accept this new direction, the disc scratching returns, literally tearing the music asunder and jarring the listener for a few more precious seconds before the track suddenly cuts off, with no pretense of conclusion. Is this a carefully composed critique of traditional music, the jukebox, or the society which flocks around it? Or is it a frantic and spontaneous assault? What sort of effect, one must wonder, was this piece intended to produce in the listener, if anything was intended at all?

The Night That John Lennon Died by Unknown

A muffled yet familiar organ sound begins to play and is almost immediately scratched to the next station. With each station after, it is easily recognizable that the Beatles are for some reason playing on each of the stations until a voice emerges. The man briefly encapsulates John Lennon's life after The Beatles for no more than 30 seconds before announcing that he is dead at the age of 40. Stations switch playing more of his masterpieces drawing us to another voice, one that is more somber and human saying John will always be with us.  The timeless songs continue and we are reminded of his life feeling that this is happening in the moment when it was really decades ago. A last voice reminds us that he never wanted to be worshipped, only remembered. How can a man that always worked for peace have died in the most un-peaceful of ways?

The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

Sounds like rhythmic scratching as the words “ya say” of the song Rapper’s Delight  repeat before the vocalist is permitted to move past the two syllables by Grandmaster Flash. The tune quickly escalates into a new groove after a sharp whistle and continues to shuffle through a variety of samples during the piece. The quick cuts are manipulated by quick chops and scratches that sound similar to what Oswald describes as an “electric washboard with a phonographic needle as a plectrum”. The words of the first two vocalists rhyme with each other and are very even in rhyming each time on the 4 count before the female vocalist starts speaking a different language for one of two bars that have a different rhyme. The cutting and restructuring of each record restructures the role of the rhythm and performance of each piece to create a fluid movement that combines many segments of different songs into one cohesive song. The melody from the song Another One Bites The Dust plays a central role in the record along with the constant presence of drums and various percussion (bongos , congas, clapping, etc).Cut up vocal samples  layer over much of the piece especially the call and response referring to the Grandmaster himself. The various vocal samples are taken from 1980’s Hip Hop club crowds and the original masters of ceremony (or MC’s) that  are pieced into a collage of vocals that dictate the Furious Fives anthem  and cheer Grandmaster Flash on from a party or club setting. The vocal samples are manipulated by spinning records against the needle (commonly counterclockwise) that can loop small sections of songs to create repetition along with specific cuts that don’t repeat. The end of the song samples a call and response asking everyone to scream before cutting to choice words from Cheech and Chong then back to the crowd. The layers of music increase towards the end of the song (including layers of crowd cheers)  before a quick fade out brings the tune to a close.  The song shocks the ear with quick, graceful transitions between vastly different sounds while maintaining a constant beat thus combining the unexpected with the expected. Who ever would have thought that so many different songs from different eras and genres could come together without ever meeting each other to create one cohesive song?