Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent

it's really the fault of whoever started the thread for connecting post-modernism and sampling. derrida's metaphor of 'folding back the cloth of the abyss' works quite well in the context of musical aesthetic development--we go through modernism, which is an attempt to reach the 'ground,' or 'foundation' of aesthetics, and ends up staring into the abyss (it either tends towards complete discord and alienation of man from his creation or complete simplicity in which man is no longer required to maintain his creation) to avoid this fate, post-modernism re-appropriates the very dissolution of aesthetic values, which is best characterized by sampling, since it synthesizes conflicting styles haphazardly, and yet develops its own 'rules of re-appropriation,' which extend both to the legal field as well as to slowly emerging artistic guidelines, which often manifest as genres. for instance, turntablism is often seen as being more 'legitimate' than laptop-generated remixes.... generally re-introducing a performance aspect to the music reinforces its legitimacy as an artform, despite the fact that all post-modern art reproduces the dissolution of artistic legitimacy. so there's a powerful irony there that can keep us interested for now.