MARRS' "Pump Up The Volume" was released in 1987 and was the first UK no 1 single to contain samples from other songs - 26 samples in fact!
MARRS 'Pump Up The Volume'
Classic Tracks
Technique : Classic Tracks
The unlikely result of a collaboration between two 4AD bands, the release of ‘Pump Up The Volume’ by MARRS was a great day for house music and copyright lawyers alike.
MARRS aka Alex Ayuli, Rudy Tambala, Steve Young and Martyn Young.
Photo : 4AD
Arecord company-arranged collaboration between two of its groups that resulted in the recording and release of a solitary single. The first UK chart topper to contain samples from other people’s recordings. The subject of litigation to ensure that some of those samples were removed for the version issued in America. And a Grammy-nominated, British house-music landmark whose blatant use of unlicensed material led to a pile of copycat releases and a short-lived bonanza for copyright lawyers. All of this was no mean feat for what’s commonly termed a one-hit wonder.
The double A-sided single ‘Pump Up The Volume’/‘Anitina’, released on the independent British label 4AD, was credited to MARRS, an acronym for the first names of the artists involved: Martyn Young of Colourbox, Alex Ayuli of AR Kane, Rudy Tambala of AR Kane, Russell Smith — a part-time contributor to AR Kane — and Steve Young of Colourbox. Featuring sampling and scratching by the DJs Chris ‘CJ’ Macintosh and Dave Dorrell, as well as a title lyric lifted from Eric B & Rakim’s ‘I Know You Got Soul’ (which took its own title from the identically named 1971 Bobby Byrd song that it heavily sampled), ‘Pump Up the Volume’ was the track that attracted all the attention, and it did so by sampling no fewer than 26 records for its original UK release.
These included drums from the Bar-Kays’ ‘Holy Ghost’ and Kool & The Gang’s ‘Jungle Jazz’, as well as vocal snippets from the Afrika Bambaataa/James Brown duet ‘Unity’, Brown’s ‘Super Bad (Part One)’, Public Enemy’s ‘You’re Gonna Get Yours’, Run-DMC’s ‘Here We Go (Live At The Funhouse)’ and, most problematically, Stock, Aitken & Waterman’s ‘Roadblock’.
“All of the guys in America, all of the hip-hop guys, were flattered to have their stuff sampled,” says John Fryer who engineered ‘Pump Up The Volume’ and co-produced it with Martyn Young. “But then Stock, Aitken & Waterman — whose studio was just up the road from Blackwing, where ‘Pump Up The Volume’ was recorded — decided to sue, and at that point a number of American artists thought, ‘Well, if they’re suing, we’re going to sue as well’. ”
Fryer didn’t mix the version of the song that was released on the 4th & Broadway label in America. In addition to ‘Roadblock’, this excluded the James Brown “watch me” sample from ‘Super Bad’ as well as vocal snatches by Lovebug Starski, Montana Sextet, Whistle, Fred Wesley & The JB’s and Grand Mixer DST with Jalal Mansur Nuriddin. In their place: an “Oh yeah” by Choice MC’s and Fresh Gordon, an “Oh” by Nuance, George Kranz going “Din daa daa,” and the title line from the trailer to the 1967 schlock sci-fi movie Mars Needs Women.
“James Brown’s lawyers were waiting for the track to be released in America, at which point they’d sue to high heaven,” Fryer remarks. “So his material had to be excised right away.”
Plus here's the Neleo Twix Mix in case you fancy your volume pumped with a little more 21st Century flavour...
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