"Bad Romance" was one of the breakout hits for Lady Gaga - and is still one of her biggest hits overall.
After the famous chanting ("ra ra gaga oh lala!"), thundering dance beats come in - and a short time later, something that must have felt as quite atonal, screechy, disharmonic sounds. Must have been a shock for a lot of first time fans, but it was an even deeper shock for hardened underground techno aficionados. Because this "sound" is actually a well-known trope in the hardcore techno and gabber scene. This specific sound is called "hoover", and was first used in "Mentasm" by Joey Beltram, then later refined in the track "Dominator" by Dutch act Human Resource. Both are considered to be amongst the tracks that kick-started the Hardcore and Gabber movement. This "hoover" sound (and the tracks) took the scene by storm. Its completely dislocated, disoriented, and disturbed feel did really react well with the turnt on, tuned in, and zoned out crowd of techno and rave maniacs and their nights of flashing strobe lights and 10+ hours of dancing.
It was literally sampled or re-created by hundreds of other producers in thousands of other tracks for the years to come. (Hey, let's be honest. Almost no-one "re-created" it. They ripped it off the record by Joey or HR).
Let's skip to another thing.
"Anaconda" by Nicki Minaj. One of the biggest hits by this artist. A song that was truly played all summer long (sorry, Kid Rock!).
Nicki played the scandal game here (well, who doesn't?). And while she made the average punter gasp because of lines like "... unless you got buns, hun", and by showing the aforementioned 'buns' in the video, the techno nerd did gasp because of a quite different reason.
The song by Nicki Minaj is based on the track "Technicolor" by Juan Atkins and Doug Craig, released in Detroit over 2 decades earlier, and it was one of *the* cornerstones of the up-and-coming Detroit and worldwide Techno scene.
The holiest of the holy for sacred techno disciples, known to only to the chosen few, the initiated... and now these mystic drums got blasted to millions of drunk party freaks.
It might be argued that Nicki is merely "second hand underground" here, because she sampled another song that already made use of Detroit's classic - "Baby got Back" by Sir-Mix-a-Lot.
But the "chain of transmission" does not matter. Juan Atkins' programming skill, electronic inspiration, and beats can be heard inside Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda".
Or you turned into Snoop Dogg's "Sweat" in 2011... and were amazed to find out the main melody sample was taken directly from another Techno-Trance cult hit, "Don't You Want My Me" by Felix.
Why does this keep happening? Why do billionaire hit musicians keep going to the derelict, "ill-reputed" and often barely known electronic Hardcore and Techno underground to find inspiration for their songs - or samples?
"I don't know. How should I know. Maybe you can tell me?"
It could be argued that these days, hit songs sample from a lot of sources, so maybe it's just chance.
But I think this "disenchanted" view does not quite click.
Because Hardcore Techno is *really* obscure, more obscure than most other sample sources.
I think the truth is that the hardcore and electronic underground is much more known and respected than most people are aware of, just not in the public, but more like something that is "whispered from door to door". And that a lot of high profile people, producers, executives and artists do the whispering, too.
There are other bizarre stories related to this, like the "rumor" that Rick Rubin entertained the thought of turning Hardcore Techno into the "next big thing" in the USA (and the world) during the 1990s decade - and was only stopped by the bigger Dutch Gabber companies in that matter.
Maybe this underground hardcore respect will 'break through' some time later in the world.
But, until then, we still have the snippets in the songs of Gaga, Dogg, or Minaj.
There are, of course, many more Pop hits out there that reference Techno / Electronic cult classics.
Random example: "Fergalicious" by Fergie samples Kaftwerk's "It's More Fun to Compute".
But compiling such a list would be a topic for a future text.
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