— "Bunny" Sawyer
In an episode of the brilliantly written though sometimes overacted comedy-drama Sports Night, the character Dan Rydell has found himself in some trouble due to singing "Happy Birthday" to his co-host Casey McCall without clearing it with the holders of the song's copyright, representatives of Mildred and Patty Hill. When he tells station manager Isaac Jaffe of the situation, his boss asks incredulously, "it took two people to write that song?"
Inside the pullout lyrics section of the 27 May 1992 issue of Smash Hits are the words to "Jump", a recent number one smash in the US which was now climbing the singles charts in Britain. As was standard practice, the songwriter credits are included. One Jermaine Durpi is listed as being responsible for its words and music; he must've done well from a single that had spent eight weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 (and certainly better than the two boys who did the rapping and all that jumping in its video).
But if you take a look on the Wikipedia page for "Jump", it gets much more extensive. Durpi's name is still there but so are Joe "The Butcher" Nicolo, Alphonso Mizell, Berry Gordy, Deke Richards, Freddie Perren, Marshall "Rock" Jones", Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner, Ralph "Pee Wee" Middlebrooks, Gregory "Greg" Webster (I realise a lot of these people have nicknames but "Greg"?), Clarence "Satch" Satchell, Bruce Napier, Walter "Junie" Morrison, Marvin "Merv" Pierce, Roy C. Hammond, Louis Freese (aka B-Real; a little on-the-nose with that whole 'keeping it real' hip hop philosophy, isn't it?), Lawrence Muggerud (aka DJ Muggs), Senen Reyes (aka Sen Dog), Lowell Fulson, Jimmy McCracklin, James Brown, J.B. Weaver Jr. (aka Schooly D), Anthony Criss (aka Treach), Keir Gist (aka KayGee), Vincent Brown (aka Vin Rock) and Herb Rooney. Bloody hell, I've even heard of a couple of these people!
Yes, it apparently took twenty-six people to write something as simple as "Jump". By comparison, "Happy Birthday" being co-written by a pair of sisters isn't so crazy. The royalties can't be great when you have to share them with more than two dozen others. It might be understandable if Dupri had forgotten or neglected to give credit to a mate who collaborated with him but this is clearly not what happened in this instance. Instead, we've got a case of attempting to cash in on the sample craze.
Sampling is one of those musical trends that's much older than people might think. If you had asked me when I was in my teens or even well into my twenties I would have guessed that it started in the mid-eighties with the rise of hip hop and house music. In truth, the practice had been going on for close to a decade prior to that and there were even earlier examples. Few cite The Beatles' better-than-it-has-any-business-being "Revolution 9" as a pioneer in sampling and this is the Fab Four we're talking about, they're frequently credited with innovations that they had little to nothing to do with (the music video, the double album, the concept album). Besides what about musical quotations as a form of proto sampling? To go back to The Beatles, when Roxy Music's Graham Simpson played a solo cribbed straight from "Day Tripper" on the remarkable opening track "Re-Make/Re-Model" on their debut album, no one demanded reparations or a Lennon/McCartney/Ferry writing credit and they were by then being managed by the notorious Allen Klein, a shyster who leapt on the chance to bilk someone — anyone — out of their earnings. But apparently borrowing the actually drum beat or guitar riff is just going too far.
(Whatsomore, this was the very same year that Canada's Barenaked Ladies released their debut album Gordon which included the track "Hello City" with lines pinched from The Housemartins' 1986 hit "Happy Hour". As far as I can tell, songwriters Paul Heaton and Stan Cullimore have never received royalties and not even a thank you for allowing us to pass off your words as our's)
So with all these individuals claiming their piece of the "Jump" pie, the song much use a lot of samples. More musically-minded individuals out there can probably spot at least half-a-dozen bits swiped from other tunes but I am only able to pick out the one — and it happens to be the most obvious of the lot. Those three piano notes from The Jackson Five's brilliant "I Want You Back" are repeated throughout "Jump" so maybe The Corporation — a Motown team up of Gordy, Mizell, Perren and Richards — deserves their share of the credit. As for the rest, I have no idea and no opinion.
Being a burgeoning indie kid in the first half of 1992, I ought to have had no time for something like Kris Kross. The two boys were only a year or so younger than myself but they still managed to look like babies. Plus, wearing their clothes backwards was stupid and something that they couldn't even be consistent about (I don't think they ever wore their hoodies the wrong way round). Yet, I liked "Jump". Evidently putting all those samples to good use, it was fantastically catchy. Friends who were also into indie or swayed towards rock in general didn't care for it but neither did those annoying guys at school who were so hung up on rap having a "message". Without having to make it sound like they were "keeping it real", "Jump" managed to seem far more authentic than increasingly irrelevant acts like Public Enemy and NWA.
In some ways, the Kris Kross story mirrors that of Musical Youth some ten years' earlier. Both had memorable number one hits in their respective homelands while mastering genres that had normally been reserved for much more senior acts. Both, rather depressingly, caught the attention of Michael Jackson. Both struggled to replicate the rapid success that greeted them early on. Both would eventually see members pass away decades before they should've been contemplating the end. A shame that Chris Smith and Chris Kelly weren't as fortunate to cash in as all those "songwriters" who somehow managed to get a writing credit for something they had next to nothing to do with.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The Lightning Seeds: "Sense"
Miranda Sawyer seems to think that "tuneful weediness" is a bad thing. Huh. Ian Broudie's rather faceless unit had been busy inventing Britpop with their nifty singles like "Pure" and "The Life of Riley" and they had more of the same with "Sense", a co-write with the late Terry Hall. 'More of the same' would be a hallmark of a group that couldn't bring itself to record anything other than perfect indie pop but what else does one need? But I would say that since I'm such a sucker for all that tuneful weediness.
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