Benny Hill Riddim
December 18, 2009 8:44 PM Subscribe
We've had posts about Yakety Sax (a.k.a. the Benny Hill music) and we've had posts about the Jamaican backing tracks known as riddims. But we've never had a post about Benny Hill riddim.
In roughly decreasing order of how much Yakety Sax you can still hear:
Elephant Man, "No Ticcle."
Leftside, "Cowboy."
Sample, "Kotch."
Timberlee feat. Tosh, "Heels."
Well! Now we are on to something!
posted by humannaire at 9:21 PM on December 18, 2009
posted by humannaire at 9:21 PM on December 18, 2009
Man. Just this morning, I was carving up "Super Rad" by the Aquabats into a ringtone, and thence musing on the history of ska as a musical genre where it could seem natural that a Devo-obsessed white american middle-class nerd could co-opt his marching band buddies into a musical career.
Jamaica has so much musical awesomeness flowing from it... even before riddim, there was dancehall, and before dancehall there was ska, and before ska there was oi!, a musical genre the skinheads loved. My favorite skinhead bar was the Cambridgeport Saloon in Cambridge, MA. You haven't lived until you've traded head-butts with 350lb latino skinheads and traded how-high-can-you-kick-me-kicks with Korean skins while a Jamaican roars out from the jukebox. (I was a reformed biker-thug in a hawaiian shirt and dockers... they could smell the CSN&Y on me. He could kick me higher, but I could kick him harder. That was the point. Male-macho-race-BS-thing, a product of the time and place.)
White-power skinheads are boring. They can't kick, they can't head-butt, and they think pulling a pistol when you're within arm's reach is a smart thing to do.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:50 PM on December 18, 2009 [2 favorites]
Jamaica has so much musical awesomeness flowing from it... even before riddim, there was dancehall, and before dancehall there was ska, and before ska there was oi!, a musical genre the skinheads loved. My favorite skinhead bar was the Cambridgeport Saloon in Cambridge, MA. You haven't lived until you've traded head-butts with 350lb latino skinheads and traded how-high-can-you-kick-me-kicks with Korean skins while a Jamaican roars out from the jukebox. (I was a reformed biker-thug in a hawaiian shirt and dockers... they could smell the CSN&Y on me. He could kick me higher, but I could kick him harder. That was the point. Male-macho-race-BS-thing, a product of the time and place.)
White-power skinheads are boring. They can't kick, they can't head-butt, and they think pulling a pistol when you're within arm's reach is a smart thing to do.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:50 PM on December 18, 2009 [2 favorites]
...and before ska there was oi!...
[pedantic] Pfff, ska originated late 50´s in Jamaica, it took punk rock music and some bald people in the UK 20 years to dumb it down to Oi![/pedantic]
And what has that in any way to do with the Benny Hill sample?
Anyway, I can not listen to this music and not picture people chasing each other in sped-up clips.
This would make for an awesome party if I ever would encounter one of these acts live.
People would be chased.
posted by Zigurana at 10:31 PM on December 18, 2009
[pedantic] Pfff, ska originated late 50´s in Jamaica, it took punk rock music and some bald people in the UK 20 years to dumb it down to Oi![/pedantic]
And what has that in any way to do with the Benny Hill sample?
Anyway, I can not listen to this music and not picture people chasing each other in sped-up clips.
This would make for an awesome party if I ever would encounter one of these acts live.
People would be chased.
posted by Zigurana at 10:31 PM on December 18, 2009
Yakety Sax is safe to sample only when diluted to homeopathic levels, as the above videos make clear.
posted by benzenedream at 10:57 PM on December 18, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by benzenedream at 10:57 PM on December 18, 2009 [2 favorites]
and before dancehall there was ska, and before ska there was oi!, a musical genre the skinheads loved
Um, you may want to bone up on your history. Ska originated in Jamaica in the late 50s-early 60s, and that's what later evolved into rocksteady, reggae and dancehall. Oi! originated in the UK (mostly England) around 1982, and was/is basically not much different different from punk rock (in fact a synonym for "Oi!" is "streetpunk"). Oi! was really more an attempt by a music journalist named Garry Bushell to declare himself the Voice of Working Class Britain than it was an actual genre or movement, though.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:33 AM on December 19, 2009
Um, you may want to bone up on your history. Ska originated in Jamaica in the late 50s-early 60s, and that's what later evolved into rocksteady, reggae and dancehall. Oi! originated in the UK (mostly England) around 1982, and was/is basically not much different different from punk rock (in fact a synonym for "Oi!" is "streetpunk"). Oi! was really more an attempt by a music journalist named Garry Bushell to declare himself the Voice of Working Class Britain than it was an actual genre or movement, though.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:33 AM on December 19, 2009
To illustrate:
Here's "Someone's Gonna Die Tonight" by Blitz, the poster boys for "oi!": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAdtxT5ekNw
Here's "Police Story" by The Partisans, who existed at the same time as Blitz but were considered "punk rock": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIvgvIPNIAw
Can you point out what differentiates "oi!" from "punk rock"? You can't, because there really isn't much of anything besides what kind of clothes the band members wore.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:42 AM on December 19, 2009
Here's "Someone's Gonna Die Tonight" by Blitz, the poster boys for "oi!": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAdtxT5ekNw
Here's "Police Story" by The Partisans, who existed at the same time as Blitz but were considered "punk rock": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIvgvIPNIAw
Can you point out what differentiates "oi!" from "punk rock"? You can't, because there really isn't much of anything besides what kind of clothes the band members wore.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:42 AM on December 19, 2009
Man, I really don't know what to make of that "Heels" song/video.
It's either brilliant, or it's given me brain damage.
posted by cmoj at 10:11 AM on December 19, 2009
It's either brilliant, or it's given me brain damage.
posted by cmoj at 10:11 AM on December 19, 2009
Oi! was really more an attempt by a music journalist self-promoting, right-wing twat named Garry Bushell to declare himself the Voice of Working Class Britain than it was an actual genre or movement, though.
Fixed that for you.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:37 AM on December 19, 2009
Fixed that for you.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:37 AM on December 19, 2009
"Me bum bum swella; yipee no worry got me KY jello"
posted by mrducts at 11:32 AM on December 19, 2009
posted by mrducts at 11:32 AM on December 19, 2009
But can I ask a question of the experts in the room? What would you call the genre these songs are in? Is it just called "riddim" or riddim just what the underlying sample is called?
posted by escabeche at 12:54 PM on December 19, 2009
posted by escabeche at 12:54 PM on December 19, 2009
Not an expert, but: the genre is dancehall.
To oversimplify a little, the riddim is the instrumental track. After a riddim is produced, it's common for multiple 'versions,' with different vocal tracks, to be recorded.
posted by box at 1:12 PM on December 19, 2009 [1 favorite]
To oversimplify a little, the riddim is the instrumental track. After a riddim is produced, it's common for multiple 'versions,' with different vocal tracks, to be recorded.
posted by box at 1:12 PM on December 19, 2009 [1 favorite]
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posted by Nelson at 8:57 PM on December 18, 2009