Genre Killer/Quotes
"The Turtles are a band you're unlikely to have heard of, seeing as they were a second-rate American pop-rock band of the 1960s who had a couple of moderate hits and promptly faded into obscurity. And yet, they probably did more damage to popular music as an art-form than anybody else ever has. Their decision to sue De La Soul for all they were worth when a snip of "You Showed Me" was sampled on 3 Feet High & Rising, and the despicably pig-headed, greedy ignorance they showed in doing so ("We don't hate sampling, we like sampling. If we don't get credit, we sue, and all that money comes back to us!"), killed hip-hop's potential just as it was getting out of the gate. Paul's Boutique and 3 Feet High & Rising are now classics because they represent a glimpse of a time when hip-hop genuinely looked like it would become the ultimate postmodern art form, with a wave of artists ready to take the innovations of [Pierre] Schaeffer and plant them firmly into the mainstream.
It never happened. The Turtles are to blame for the gangster-rap and pop-rap that has dominated the charts since, the lack of invention and scope in its music being so dictated by legality. Hip-hop has remained dominated by the sample, it's just that these days, the people making the music have to make a choice - use one or two samples, and be commercially viable, or make the music they truly want to make and forever remain an underground concern. Meanwhile, the lucky people who achieve both are invariably Girl Talk-style novelty acts, and as much as I like 2 Many DJs, I'd be horrified if that was all we as a culture had to show for hip-hop's potential power."