You rarely hear anyone cover the Beastie Boys. Is it because their songs rely so much on samples that they’re impossible to recreate legally without making a profit? How did they not get sued into oblivion with hundreds of samples used? Where do those royalties go today?
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Paul’s Boutique was a landmark record in music law. The Beatles did sue them. It’s largely thanks to that album that sampling isn’t a legal liability and allowed the practice to continue. It’s one of the most important records of all time IMO.
The Beatles thing is a myth. Nobody connected to the Beatles has sued anybody over Paul’s Boutique. Most of the samples on Pauls’ Boutique were cleared, especially the most obvious ones.
He adds that there are two myths about the samples and licensing on the Beastie Boys’ classic. One is that when the record was first released, neither the group nor its label, Capitol, had cleared any of the rights to the snippets of recordings that they and producers the Dust Brothers used. ‘They and their label were really cautious. They cleared tons of songs,’ McLeod says, citing the ballpark $250,000 figure that’s often reported, and the fact that the Jimmy Castor Bunch had sued the group soon after ‘Licensed to Ill’ was released.
Huh, TIL. I even glanced over the Wikipedia page before I posted that. Thanks!
For a modern example of something similar, Avalanches took like 15 years to release their second album, Wildflower because they had to clear hundreds of samples, including the Beatles.
Outstanding album though.
I found a torrent years ago with every song they sampled on this album, I highly recommend it. Absolutely phenomenal collection of music that goes so much deeper than you expect.
I don’t think hip hop songs in general tend to get covered, or at least not that I’m aware of (am absolutely open to being corrected on that).
I guess a lot of the rhymes are often very specifically about the person rapping, so someone else doing it might be a bit weird.
That said, I do know of one good example in eLZhi’s Elmatic a remake of Nas’ Illmatic. It has significantly rewritten lyrics though.
I realise this is a parody, not a cover, but it immediately came to mind when I saw this post.
Slip n Slide by the Beastie Boys.
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I don’t think you could produce a punk album in the late 00s if it didn’t include a cover of “Gratitude”.
Maybe they are so bad or nieche that it does not make sense to cover them?
I mean, a piece is usually either covered because it is extreme popular, or because someone has a serious idea of how to improve it.
Did you just call the Beastie Boys niche?
