Rehashing the past

While browsing through a generic clothing store, my attention is drawn to the music playing within. While it is by all means rather standard with respect to modern musical tastes, I notice that the melody of the hook is that of a popular 80s anthem. The funny thing is that it wasn’t even the first time that day that such a thing had happened. While it was a nice throwback to a tune I hadn’t listened to in a while, I was left wondering why they wouldn’t just play the original thing. Why the weird remixes?

I don't recall a period where the regurgitation of past hits was as prevalent as it seems to be nowadays. Not to say this wasn't happening at all beforehand (some of those past hits are themselves interpolations of music before), music history is filled with examples of interpolation. Variations of pre-existing themes, incorporation of common folk tunes, the rise of sampling, and recycling of previous material to create something new are far from unique to modern times, nor are they inherently bad things.

It seems, though, that a noticeable few instances of modern interpolation are being done haphazardly, distastefully, and as a cheap exploit of nostalgia. Some notable examples are the use of 80s/90s/etc choruses and themes in modern EDM production (sometimes changing the key or adding new lyrics to it), or using the backing track of the original hit over a new track that can barely contain its cheek with crude references to the original. The extent to which the interpolation is sometimes the only memorable part of a track is baffling. It's as if the entire strategy of getting the track to chart is to do the interpolation well enough for people who have vaguely heard of the original hit to put the new track in their playlist rotation for a while.

This trend of rising musical interpolation isn’t out of thin air. Various music publishing companies have gone out and bought rights to many old hits. Now that you, the publishing company, have all of these assets, you need to increase their value somehow. But how can you do that when most of your catalogue has been off the charts for decades? No worries, we live in an era where new music is dispersed through multiple social media platforms, and short-form content almost always has some backing track to it. What you do is you ease your licensing requirements, and ask (or pay) trendy current artists to either take snippets of your catalogue, or interpolate them while keeping the reference to the original obvious (yay royalties). This drives people back to those original hits, increasing your asset value. Hooray!

The artists themselves are probably happy to go along with it because if the starting point for their next hit is a sample which has been listened to and liked by tens of millions of people already, isn’t that a nice head start to things? I’ll reiterate that I don’t think interpolation is inherently bad. However, I do think it is a problem when I listen to a new track and the only thing I’m left caring about is the original hit it's based on. 

Anyway, if you’re reading this in ~2040 and want to reuse my blog, I’m ready to talk business.