Pump up the Volume (song)

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"Pump up the Volume"

Single by M/A/R/R/S
B-side(s)	Anitina
Released	1987
Format	7" and 12" vinyl CD Single
Recorded	1987
Genre	Dance
Length	4:08 (7" version) 6:28 (12" version)
Label	4AD
Producer(s)	Martyn Young
Chart positions
#1 (United Kingdom) #1 (Netherlands) #13 (United States)

"Pump up the Volume" (1987) was the only single released by British recording act M/A/R/R/S. It was a number-one hit in the United Kingdom and is generally regarded as a significant milestone in the development of British house music and sampling culture.

The single was the product of an uneasy collaboration between Colourbox and A R Kane, two groups on the independent art-pop label 4AD. The link-up was suggested by label founder Ivo Watts-Russell after the two groups had independently sounded him out about the possibility of releasing a commercially-oriented dance record, inspired by the American house music that was starting to make an impact on the British charts. When the M/A/R/R/S project was first mooted early in 1987, the style had already spawned two major hits—Farley "Jackmaster" Funk's "Love Can't Turn Around" in the autumn of 1986, and Steve "Silk" Hurley's "Jack Your Body", which reached number one in January 1987. But just as important to M/A/R/R/S in the long run was the underground dance scene which was beginning to emerge in the UK, particularly records such as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu's "All You Need Is Love" and Coldcut's "Say Kids, What Time Is It?". These sample-heavy dance records were critically acclaimed, but were not mainstream hits.

[edit] The record

However, the collaboration did not go entirely to plan. Once in the studio, the groups' different working methods and personalities failed to gel. Producer Jon Fryer found himself in the middle and unable to resolve the conflict between the two camps. The result was that instead of working together, the two groups ended up recording a track each, then turning it over to the other for additional input. Colourbox came up with "Pump Up the Volume", a percussion-led near-instrumental (featuring an Eric B. & Rakim sample which gave it its title), while A R Kane created the more deliberately arty "Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)" in another studio. Colourbox then added a heavy drum-machine rhythm and effects to "Anitina" and A R Kane overdubbed some additional guitar to "Pump Up the Volume". The coup de grace, however, was the addition of scratch mix effects and samples by DJs Chris "C.J." Macintosh and Dave Dorrell.

The two tracks were released to UK dance clubs in July 1987, on an anonymous white label with no artist credit. "Pump Up the Volume" proved to be the more popular side and was the track more heavily promoted (in particular, it was the track for which an accompanying video was produced) when 4AD released the 12" single (as, officially, a double A-side) on August 24. It entered the UK singles chart the following week at number 35, a strong initial showing for an unknown act, especially on 12" sales only. However, what gave "Pump Up the Volume" its commercial edge was the remix released a week later. This remix became the best-known version of the track, transforming it by the addition of numerous samples which provided the record with additional hooks besides its oft-repeated title chant— Public Enemy shouting "You're gonna get yours!", the title line from Criminal Element Orchestra's "Put The Needle to the Record" (a minor house hit from earlier the same year), samples from The Bar-Kays' "Holy Ghost", and most distinctively, a sped-up sample of Israeli singer Ofra Haza's "Im Nin'Alu". It was this remix, rather than the original, which was edited down to create the 7" version of the track, which began picking up radio play.

As the record climbed the charts, however, the single ran into legal difficulties. With "Pump Up the Volume" standing at number two, an injunction was obtained against it by pop music producers Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW), who objected to the use of a sample from their hit single "Roadblock". Distribution was held up for several days while negotiations took place, which resulted in an undertaking that overseas releases would not include the "Roadblock" sample. Dave Dorrell later stated that he believed SAW would never have noticed the highly distorted sample had he not rashly boasted about it in a radio interview. The offending article consisted of 7 seconds of an anonymous female background voice moaning the single word "hey", involved no musical or melodic information, and could never be considered plagiarism in the literary sense. Pete Waterman wrote an open letter to the music press calling such things "wholesale theft". Some publications were quick to point out that Waterman was currently using the bassline from Colonel Abrams hit "Trapped" in his production of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna' Give You Up", which was competing in close proximity to "Pump Up the Volume" in the pop charts. Many observers suggested that SAW's motives had just as much to do with extending the run of "Never Gonna Give You Up" at the top of the chart. SAW had access to limitless legal resources and M/A/R/R/S (technically in the wrong by all accounts) stood little if any chance of a successful defense. Despite all of this, "Pump Up the Volume" went on to spend two weeks at number one in October 1987 and was a chart hit in many other countries, receiving considerable airplay on American, Australian and European airwaves. While it was stripped from the official American release, the version containing the offending "Roadblock" sample was the version that the Australian charts credited.

[edit] Influence

As the first big British-made house hit, "Pump Up the Volume" marked a turning-point in the popularity of the genre. Eric B. & Rakim's Paid in Full, which entered the top twenty in November, sold on the strength of a Coldcut remix which unashamedly recycled elements from the M/A/R/R/S single (though the original artists, an American rap duo, were reported to hate the mix). This was a very rapid response indeed, since "Pump Up the Volume" seemed to catch the record industry off-guard. It wasn't until February 1988, a good four months after "Pump Up the Volume" reached the top ten, that the floodgates truly opened. Like "Pump Up the Volume", many of the first major wave of British house hits were on independent labels. Not all of them displayed an obvious influence from M/A/R/R/S, though many did. While Two Men, a Drum Machine and a Trumpet's "Tired of Getting Pushed Around", one of the first such hits, was principally just a dance groove with minimal use of samples, it was the sampling angle that made most impact on the public consciousness in the short term. Among the hits clearly following in M/A/R/R/S' footsteps were "Beat Dis" by Bomb the Bass, "Theme from S'Express" by S'Express, and "Doctorin' the House" by Coldcut. These in turn spawned imitators from across Europe and the USA. The sample montage craze would soon burn itself out, since many of the later records relied heavily on recycling the same samples already heard on the hits mentioned above. Litigation would also play its part and the adage "Where there's a hit—theres a writ" was coined as both house and hip hop artists underwent a period of being sued for using unlicenced samples in their recordings. The sampling style was also parodied, notably by Star Turn on 45 Pints, with their UK hit "Pump Up the Bitter", and by Harry Enfield's "Loadsamoney" single (incidentally produced by a young William Orbit). Les Adams also released "Check This Out" under the LA Mix moniker—a record that replayed "Pump up the volume" and "This is a journey into sound"" soundbites before a male voice yells, "Oh not again! Get off!" More significantly, the house boom of 1988 would later come to influence later dance music styles, including the rave scene and, in a different form, "Madchester". The song itself was later sampled by Girl Talk on his album Night Ripper in 2006.

M/A/R/R/S themselves never came close to recording again. A R Kane gave interviews to the music press in which they explained that while they were proud to have been part of M/A/R/R/S, it was not an experience they were keen to repeat. They were particularly unhappy at having their contribution to "Pump Up the Volume" all but removed from the track (though this may have been the decision of Dorrell, Fryer and/or Macintosh, rather than Colourbox). Colourbox attempted to carry on using the name M/A/R/R/S, but were not willing to pay the £100,000 that A R Kane wanted for full rights to the name, and the project remained a one-off. DMC Records, a UK DJ pool and remix service, sought permission to remix "Pump Up the Volume" for several years. After continual setbacks resulting from the uneasy M/A/R/R/S collaboration, the organisation gave up and released their own version in 1995 under "Greed featuring Ricardo De Force".