![]() ![]() As a musical concept, interpolations are a cousin to sampling, the art of sticking sound snippets of older songs into new projects that has defined so much of hip-hop. Just ask Olivia Rodrigo, Ava Max, Lorde, and Doja Cat, who’ve all made charting or platinum records in the past year borrowing beats and melodies from older hits. Interpolations have run rampant in the strange year of 2021. “At some point when one of these new tracks comes out, ‘Closing Time’ is going to be a massive hit again,” Graham says, jovially. One of the “Closing Time” interpolations has already made it to a major artist, though Graham declines to disclose who will perform it. The guitar riff and hooky verses, Graham says, work well with the guitar-driven hip-hop beats artists like Post Malone have popularized in recent years. A t one point during the sessions, three different writers’ rooms were simultaneously making their own versions of the track. “Closing Time,” the ‘90s hit written by Dan Wilson - whose catalog Primary Wave bought earlier in 2021 - was the camp’s most-flipped song. Primary Wave hosts writers across several genres, including its own in-house talent alongside songwriters from Electric Feel, which, along with running a label and publishing division, manages artists including Post Malone, Iann Dior, and 24kGoldn. Publishers have a vested interest in getting tracks interpolated: They get revenue on the new songs if their signed songwriters have credits on the tracks, and interpolations and samples often drive streams to the original material to boot. Leading up to the camp, Primary Wave, which has been on a buying spree collecting publishing rights from the likes of Stevie Nicks and Bob Marley, sent all the songwriters a playlist of a few dozen old hits they owned a stake in - offering these easily clearable copyrights as a way to kickstart the writing process. ![]() Songwriting camps aren’t uncommon, but this was Graham’s first time setting up a camp directly asking for songs to be written with interpolations. “We wanted everyone to have fun, be as creative as you want, make whatever you’d like, but use our catalog as a starting point,” says Franny Graham, one of the camp’s organizers and the vice president of creative at indie publisher Primary Wave. There was just one twist: The writers were specifically encouraged to lift music from old hit songs. ![]() It was, essentially, a summer camp for hitmaking. to 7 p.m., they wrote songs - in between catered meals and fierce games of corn hole in the estate’s backyard - to shop around to A-listers like Doja Cat, Ariana Grande, and Cardi B, who could turn the tunes into lucrative anthems. It was the middle of June when more than two dozen songwriters, producers, and publishing representatives poured into an expansive, secluded creator’s “compound” just outside of Los Angeles’ wealthy Brentwood neighborhood. ![]()
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