A Brief History of Sampling: From the Beatles to the Beastie Boys

Jon­ny Wil­son, oth­er­wise known as Eclec­tic Method, has made an art of “splic­ing togeth­er music, TV and film and set­ting it to high-ener­gy dance beats.” He has also become some­thing of a dig­i­tal cura­tor of pop cul­ture. In the video above, Wil­son presents:

A video remix jour­ney through the his­to­ry of sam­pling tak­ing in some of the most not­ed breaks and riffs of the decades. A chrono­log­i­cal jour­ney from the Bea­t­les’ use of the Mel­lotron in the 60s to the sam­ple dense hiphop and dance music of the 80s and 90s. Each break is rep­re­sent­ed by a vibrat­ing vinyl sound­wave explod­ing into var­i­ous tracks that sam­pled it, each re-use anoth­er chap­ter in the mod­ern nar­ra­tive.

The audio track can be down­loaded over at Sound­Cloud. If you dig this brief bit of musi­cal his­to­ry, you won’t want to miss some of the relat­ed items below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Rick Wake­man Tells the Sto­ry of the Mel­lotron, the Odd­ball Pro­to-Syn­the­siz­er Pio­neered by the Bea­t­les

All Hail the Beat: How the 1980 Roland TR-808 Drum Machine Changed Pop Music

The “Amen Break”: The Most Famous 6‑Second Drum Loop & How It Spawned a Sam­pling Rev­o­lu­tion