Saturday, November 19, 2011

The Alchemist - Tick Tock (2003) sampled Side Effect - The Loneliest Man In Town (1981)

Artist:  The Alchemist
Song:  Tick Tock (Featuring Nas)
Year:  2003
Album:  Insomnia - 1st Infantry Mixtape Vol. 2



Although there are too many to choose from, I think that this is my favourite song by The Alchemist.  I like this version with Nas because it feels like a mixtape cut due to its length, mix and Slick Rick at the beginning.  Also, the mixtape cover is pretty funny.




Artist:  The Alchemist
Song:  Tick Tock (Featuring Nas and Prodigy)
Year:  2004
Album:  1st Infantry



Some beats are so good that they demand a new version with another Emcee:  Enter Prodigy.  The song now sounds like an album cut with a little more work put into it.  Unfortunately, Nas's mic sounds better than Prodigy's.




Artist:  Side Effect
Song:  The Loneliest Man In Town
Year:  1981
Album:  Portraits



The Alchemist was pretty clever in creating a four-bar loop for both versions of his song.  The sample from 0:08 - 0:18 is played to make up around 3 of the 4 bars and the final bar is the sample from 0:11 - 0:15 (a subset of the larger sample).  The reason why I like this is because he alternates two different notes at the beginning of bar 1 and bar 3 and two different sounds at the 3rd beat of bars 1 and 3.  The sample at 0:00 is used only in the album version of the song at the beginning and also when Prodigy's verse ends.

No comments:

Post a Comment