The most important 6 seconds in musical history.

Give this video 18 minutes and you’ll understand the last 30 years of music. In fact, I’d recommend minimizing the window and just listening. It’s amazing what you’ll learn about what you already thought you knew.

46 comments
  1. Issimo said:

    I long for cutural reset.
    Support Electro Magnetic Pulse!

  2. Joel said:

    Powerpuff Girls! lol

    • laura said:

      I thought that too lol!!

    • Zing said:

      YES YES IT IS!

    • yay said:

      The City of Townsville…

  3. Michael said:

    musical history is intensely more elaborate than this, and far deeper. I think being bold enough to claim that this is the most important of all time may be outlandish. I am aware of how pervasive this loop is in our culture, but music is so much deeper and bigger than us, and our temporary lives, that I found it hard to believe that this is the end all of musical history.

    • Philmore Manbread said:

      I was thinking the exact same thing. Wouldn’t something like the first person to use dynamics, or alternate time signatures, or even the first person to put 3 notes together to form a chord be much more important than an over used drum loop.

  4. Shane said:

    michael, no one said this is the most important part of music. it’s simply a brief history of the loop and how it changed the world of sampling, with hip hop, techno and other genres. it is not stated anywhere that this is the end of all musical history. get your head out of your ass and quit acting like you know even a thing or two about music, you arrogant pansy.

    • joe said:

      i love you

      • Harley62 said:

        I love you too.

    • Davel said:

      Actually, the title of this post says:
      “The most important 6 seconds in musical history.”

      • Keven said:

        Yeah, but how many other 6 seconds of music can claim this level of importance?

    • Dylan said:

      “The most important 6 seconds in music history.”

      • TESMITH47 said:

        correction: The most important 6 seconds in “COMMERICAL” music

    • awestcave said:

      “no one said this is the most important part of music…”

      …actually they did.

    • Paul said:

      Dude the name of the article itself is “The most important 6 seconds in music” which contradicts your statement “no one said this is the most important part of music” yes indeed someone said it is the most important part of music, in fact its right there in the title. Secondly, this beat is pivotal in rap, techno and hip-hop, but if you listen to a bunch of music from these genres you’ll realize that there are plenty of songs that don’t employ this 6 seconds of music, in fact most of them don’t. This is an interesting soundbyte though, it shows how a basic musical concept can influence a whole bunch of other music. It’s also funny how this beat seems to super cede copyright laws. Pretty funny. But win lose or draw drop the ‘tude princess.

    • Kyle said:

      It is most certainly stated that this is the most important part of music history. Right in the title.

    • Jon said:

      correct! anyone with the brainpower required to click on the actual link to the video can figure out that it is not actually titled as what this blogger decided to call it, nor claiming anything of the like.
      anyone who took the post’s title literally: welcome to the internet, please think next time before posting.

  5. Scott said:

    Sounds like powerpuff girls

  6. sam said:

    this is not the most important 6 seconds in music history. it’s just not. it’s fascinating, and it brings to light much of which i had no prior knowledge and which i find very interesting. it is not that important though in the grand scheme of musical history. sorry. the broader point that it illustrates toward the end of the video is significant and may be be transcendent in ways that the amen break beat itself is not

  7. somethingsomething said:

    for those of you debating the level of how important to musical history this piece is, how does the recording end? if i remember right it discusses copyright laws and how they have the power to tear down musicians trying to build on the past. its not about how this particular break beat influenced music, but how the government is influencing the industry. the “Amen break beat” was simply a vessel to raise the point that the government has just as much, and if not more, influence on music than musicians do at this point in history

  8. Hoos said:

    Now all this still leaves the most important question unanswered: “Who is the drummer?”

  9. elliot said:

    If you put this on really high quality speakers, turn down all the lights, and pack a faaaaat ass bowl, it’s such a great experience that it’s life changing…and maybe even life saving.

  10. Fintan said:

    Sampling is not essential to musical building on the past. Some people play instruments, like, for example drum kits…

  11. Tyler said:

    it..does not even let me watch this video, is it because i’m on stumbleupon?

  12. SconeyIsland said:

    A FREE LIFT PASS!?

  13. staples said:

    im sampling this

  14. TheWobbled said:

    What about the second movement of Beethoven’s 32nd piano sonata? There are pieces of jazz in that song and it was composed a few hundred years before jazz was ever popular. This is cool and all, but it’s certainly not a gamechanger.

  15. more like the most important 6 seconds in 90’s Hip-Hop history

  16. Destinee said:

    I’m pretty sure this was to show the role of sampling music in media. It’s just an example. Most important, would you have watched if i was plainly titled “Amen break” Probably not. I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t they’d pass right by it and consider it boring. Ways to catch your attention of coarse.

  17. Travis said:

    Dear everyone complaining about this video:
    You’ve clearly never tried to sample music, or attempted a legal way of crafting beats.

  18. Brett said:

    Good vid. . . should be half as long

  19. amand said:

    ya ok no one played that drum beat before 1960. ppFFFF

  20. night chandac said:

    Holy monotone.

  21. It is important but no the MOST important event in music history. The fact that the track was lifted (stolen) like most hip hop/rap beats further compounds the fact that those responsible for the actual creation of the beat will not receive their just rewards. The “author” even uses the word ‘plundered’. This is not however creating something new; it’s borrowing or stealing to bend a genre or morph an already existing style of music. New music is dead or at the very least awful. New music stopped being relevant years ago, maybe decades by now. The best that we can hope for is finding music that appeals to each individual ear and to support that which makes us happy or brings us joy.

  22. Tyler Durden said:

    Copyrighting sound is as ludicrous as copyrighting sight or smell. “Oh, hai….I arranged some sounds in a particular pattern that now belongs to me and no one else. You can go ahead and pay me every time the sound is used” What a load of ridiculous BS. It makes just as much sense as me saying I am copyrighting looking at the moon. From now on, anyone who looks at the moon needs to pay me royalties. If you don’t like it you can smell my ass. But that’s going to cost you, too.

  23. Robert said:

    LoL, it’s used in rap, hip-hop, funk, techno, and pop. Therefore it’s unimportant in actual musical history.

  24. Bobby said:

    I’m going to copyright G and A#……….and guitars.

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