As the veritable foundation integral to hip hop’s rise to prominence, sampling—in its truest form—remains relatively niche in the metal genre. Outside of the nascent days of nü-metal and the scathing sonic discourse of grindcore, the art form of repurposing breaks and lines of dialogue into heavier fare remains relatively uncommon.
A case could be made for industrial music being a haven for sampling, but even then much of it falls more along the lines of programming. Sure there’s also an outlier or two be found in the works of White Zombie, etc., but few sample-laden heavy albums have ever seen the commercial success Slipknot‘s 2x multi-platinum self-titled 1999 album went on to achieve.
The abundance of samples on that aforementioned Slipknot effort also became a detriment to the band at one point, landing them in legal hot water in the past. The track “Frail Limb Nursery” was pulled from the album amid copyright concerns over an apparent unauthorized sample. Similarly, unauthorized lyrical inspiration from a fictional crime story for the related track “Purity” also saw the track disappear from copies of the record for a time as well.
There’s a chance you’ve heard a number of the samples used on Slipknot‘s self-titled record in their original form and aren’t even aware of it. YouTube channel Eightminutesupsidedown examined the origins of the samples used on the record in the below video last year, which has been making the rounds lately. In it you can find out just what the band’s sampler Craig “133” Jones put to use on the record.
Somewhat ironically, more recent times have found tracks from the album take on a new life as samples in songs released by Ho99o9. Meanwhile, if you want to go further down the metal sample hole via the career of the above mentioned White Zombie, this person’s work may yield a few surprises.
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