Thanks to BoingBoing, an exceptionally ecclectic and seemingly endless collection of strange and wonderful links, I stumbled onto the History of Sampling, a project of software/graphic/data designer Jesse Kriss.
The History of Sampling is a web-based software program that provides:
…a visualizer for the history of music sampling — a timeline with colored dots represents some of the most widely circulated tracks; click to see all the tracks they spawned, click the tracks they spawned to see what other tracks they sampled.
Click on a dot in 1965, for example, and see how many contemporary songs sampled James Brown’s ”Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” Then click on one of those songs featuring the sample, and see what other samples the artist used in their works.
It’s a fascinating example of data visualization and software design intended for personal discovery of complex data. Instead of lists and citations, the viewer can click and explore, and slowly see patterns emerge from that exploration. Imagine such a system graphing play references between plays, or motif use among composers, or catchphrases among authors.
As BoingBoing suggests, it’s mesmerizing.
