This video, via Vox, is a look at the Orchestra Hit – a sound that was ubiquitous in the 80’s.
But it’s also a look at how technology and chance work together in strange ways to shape music, how the 80s were a time of naive freedom for sampling and how time has made the cutting edge into the evocatively nostalgic.
Video Description:
f you listen to the first few seconds of Bruno Mars’ “Finesse” (hint: listen to the Cardi B remix) you’ll hear a sound that immediately creates a sense of 80s hip-hop nostalgia. Yes, Cardi B’s flow is very Roxanne Shante, but the sound that drives that nostalgia home isn’t actually from the 1980s.
Robert Fink and the inventor of the Fairlight CMI, Peter Vogel, help me tell the story of the orchestra hit – a sound that was first heard in 1910 at the Paris Opera where the famed 20th century Russian composer Stravinsky debuted his first hit, The Firebird.
The video above is, in short, a history of the original orchestra hit sample from The Firebird Suite to the 1982 hit “Planet Rock” to “Finesse.”
These Vox videos are on the money.
I always thought finesse was a 90s motif. It was used all over the 80’s and 90s, this was a cool little documentary
This is great. Oddly me and some strangers had a conversation about this very sample at a bar on Thursday evening, haha.
Great documentary
So cool to see where Peter Vogel got the original from! Also amazed to see how many tracks used a variation on it – I hadn’t even noticed most of them. Have to say, Owner of a lonely Heart takes the win for me 🙂
It’s a cool sound!
Thanx for sharing this docu.
Great article
lovely.
Very accurate and well done video.. would’ve been nice to throw in a few of the gazillion late 80’s techno-rave songs with the orch hit…. […elvis has left the building…]
Afrika Bambaataa takes the win!
There are orchestra hits on my Kaossilator Pro. Great fun!!
An obnoxious video.
The writing and the narrator and just the production of it.
They keep talking abut bruno mars…
But I wouldn’t expect anything else from vox media.