Why Loops Won't Make You Famous

In today's world of DIY music, there are more people than ever creating their own music, thanks primarily to inexpensive, easily obtained music programs. Many of these programs are based on the idea of loops. For those who are new to the scene, loops are canned, individual snippets of music that are trimmed so they can be played in a loop indefinitely.

There are quite a number of very successful consumer-grade packages that offer impressive quantities of loops, like Sony ACID, and M-Audio's Session. It's easy to load a few loops, stack them up, and make a decent sounding song.

There are a few problems with loops, as I see it. First, you are basically remixing someone else's creativity. Granted, most loops aren't terribly creative. But even so, any music you make with purchased loops will not be your own music. There are occasions where a few sampled loops of really strong beats or riffs do make it into the popular musical vocabulary (James Brown's famous "Funky Drummer" beat a good example of a loop that has been used in thousands of songs). But the key there is that the successful songs that use such elements are not completely made of other people's work.

Before the era of ready-made loop libraries, we had people trying basically the same thing, to horrible consequences. A prime example of looping gone bad is Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby". It was a big hit -- until people realized he had completely ripped off the intro riff to the Queen & David Bowie classic "Under Pressure" and looped it through his entire song. That was the first major nail (and lawsuit) in his thankfully short-lived career. Could he have lasted longer with something truly original? Maybe, if it was good. (Okay, I highly doubt it.)

Imagine this scenario: You finish your first album and get some interest from a record label. Some astute audiophile at the label recognizes every sound in your songs (except, possibly vocals) are bundled with ACID or another popular loop software. I'm willing to bet that will be a deal breaker. Why? Record labels want creativity, not re-mixers.

I strongly believe that the use of canned loops is not creating music. It is the musical equivalent of making scenes out of clip art and considering yourself an original artist. Nope. You are doing image layout, not creation. You shouldn't expect to be hired as an original artist for clever use of clip art. Loop tools and loop libraries are first and foremost musical toys.

Now I'm sure some loop users are upset and think I'm way off base. Don't get me wrong, loops have their place. If you create your OWN loops and use them in your music, that is a completely different animal. In that case, you are creating your own building blocks and making something wholly original from your own snippets. If you want your drum pattern to go on for an extended period of time, it's a great time saver to loop it (you really should introduce variations into any repeated pattern to give a more human feel to it, but it's your choice). Again, I'll stress that is YOUR drum pattern, not one you pulled out of a box.

Music is about creativity, not cut-and-paste. Please, give yourself some credit and put yourself into your music. Your work will be stronger in the long run if you avoid the musical crutches that are all too available. You will know the difference. Your audience will know the difference, too.

Originality shines like a beacon in our current musically saturated world. Let's let the world know what we sound like.