"Pumped Up Kicks" sample?
February 5, 2012 2:56 PM   Subscribe

Does the intro to Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" feature any samples or heavily borrow from any other songs?

The intro to the song sounds extremely familiar to me, not the beat itself but the sort of horn-like sound from 0:04 to 0:33. I have been unsuccessful with Google. Thanks!
posted by ataxia to Media & Arts (5 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Not according to WhoSampled, which tends to be accurate for songs this prominent this long after release.
posted by dekathelon at 3:26 PM on February 5, 2012


I think it might just be reminiscent of low-bit '80s samplers. That particular sound isn't ringing any bells, but that timbre sounds like a lot of early sampling instruments to me. Retro!
posted by mintcake! at 5:06 PM on February 5, 2012


Best answer: That sounds very, very much like it's sampled from a crappy 1980s Casio toy keyboard. Did you have one when you were younger?

Rhythmically, the stuttering sampler-ness of it mimics this part from Deee-Lite's "Groove Is In The Heart." That same stuttering rhythm was used a lot in the sampler-heavy eighties. Classic example.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:24 PM on February 5, 2012 [2 favorites]


I had the same kind of brain itch for that part of the song. Not a direct sample, but it reminded me of a song I annoyingly couldn't recall.

It turns out that it was pinging my brain's memory of this synth-y line of Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry." Not the same key, not a sample by any measure, and really, not even the exact same pattern...but that's what that bit in Pumped Up Kicks was making me think of. It's likely not the song you're thinking of, since it's for me it was just an association my brain made to a memory of another song; plus, other answers have said those synthy rhythms were popular in the 80s. But just throwing it out there in case it helps.
posted by neda at 6:48 PM on February 5, 2012


Response by poster: Thanks for the answers everyone. Nothing is really clicking, but I assume if no samples have been discovered that it's not as similar to what I'm thinking of as I thought. I'm going to keep racking my brain. I'll have to get my hands on an old Casio keyboard though.
posted by ataxia at 8:25 PM on February 5, 2012


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