A recent TikTok has pointed out a remarkable trend among retro video games like Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, and Chrono Trigger, which sampled some of their most iconic soundtracks from pop music of the era. Over the decades, many video games have achieved fame for their soundtracks, from the modern orchestral scores that can be found in cinematic games such as the Uncharted series, to the instantly recognisable Super Mario Bros theme.
Sampling is a common technique used across the music industry, in which an artist will take part of a song and incorporate it into their own work, turning it into an entirely different track. Although this may sound like plagiarism, artists are often able to get away with this as long as they are paying for the rights to the samples and have entered into a legal agreement with copyright owners. In some cases, if the rights to a piece of music have expired, which is often the case with older music, then they're open to be sampled for free.
Popular TikTok retro games like Chrono Trigger and popular songs from their era. These include Led Zepplin's 'Kashmir' appearing in Mega Man Zero 2's 'Gravity', Ninja Gaiden using Black Sabbath's 'Iron Man' for their similarly titled track 'I Am Man', or Chrono Trigger deciding to Rick Roll players before Rick Rolling was a thing by sampling Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' for 'Robo's Theme'. His comparison videos showing the tracks side by side with the songs they're sampling have amassed hundreds of thousands of views per video.
Sampling isn't necessarily always the act of using pre-existing music, and can be used for incorporating sounds into a piece of music, as is evident in the likes of Mick Jordon's DOOM and DOOM Eternal soundtracks, where he famously incorporated the sounds of chainsaws and lawnmower blades into the music. Clever use of audio sampling like this can build a strong foundation for a memorable piece of music, even if the foundation is another song that's just as catchy.
Sampling has been around for decades and will definitely continue being practiced in the future, despite the ever-changing laws surrounding copyright. For many it's fascinating to see where composers take their inspiration from, even if sometimes they display this inspiration a bit too prominently in their finished work. Thanks to sampling we now know that a pop song like 'Never Gonna Give You Up' can end up being well-suited to a laser-wielding robot, forging quite the unexpected combination.
Source: jahni/Twitter
