Sampling in Alternative Rock: A Deep Dive into New Order, Depeche Mode, and Beyond
Sampling is the art of taking fragments of existing recordings and reworking them into something new. It became one of the driving forces of hip hop in the early 1980s, but it didn’t stay there for long. Soon, the same approach started showing up in alternative rock, changing the way bands wrote songs and built their sound.
In this post, we’ll explore how that happened, starting with New Order’s experiments in the early eighties and ending with Radiohead’s bold reinvention of the idea around the year 2000. It also addresses misconceptions about sampling myths (for example, rumours that New Order used Fairlight “orchestra hit” presets from Igor Stravinsky), and explains when bands like Depeche Mode sampled other artists versus creating their own sound libraries.
Take a break from myths and crank the real hits
New Order’s Early Experiments with Sampling
“Blue Monday”: one of the first rock songs built around a sample
When New Order set about programming the drum and synth sequences for “Blue Monday” in 1983, they chased the pulsating feel of New York’s club scene and pushed sampling into the pop charts. The band had recently bought an E-mu Emulator, an early keyboard sampler that allowed them to record and play back short chunks of sound. Watch a quick demo of the E-mu Emulator:
For the song’s haunting choral stab, they sampled a choir patch from Kraftwerk’s “Uranium” off the 1975 album Radio-Activity. Stephen Morris later recalled that sampling a piece of another artist’s record felt “like the ultimate in cheating,” but the resulting hook helped turn “Blue Monday” into a groundbreaking synth-pop classic (Electronic Sound). The success of “Blue Monday” demonstrated that sampling need not be confined to hip-hop and that alternative dance bands could repurpose existing recordings to create something new.
Beyond “Blue Monday”: film clips and found voices
New Order rarely sampled other musicians after “Blue Monday,” preferring to build their own sound libraries with the Emulator. Instead of raiding other records, they lifted dialogue and sound effects from films and TV. The 1984 B-side “Murder” features eerie lines from 2001: A Space Odyssey (“Hal, open the pod bay doors…”) and from Malcolm McDowell’s performance in Caligula (BrooklynVegan). The nine-minute club epic “The Perfect Kiss” layers sequences of sequenced keyboards, Latin percussion, and “incongruous frog samples” that croak throughout the breakdown (Louder Than War).
Another song from the Low-Life sessions, “This Time of Night,” opens with a sampled introduction by Jeffrey Bernard (“I’m one of the few people who live what’s called a low life…”) (Louder Than War); controversy over its use led the band to bury it in the final mix.
The closing track on the same album, “Every Little Counts,” ends with an overwhelming swell created by holding down all the keys on the Emulator keyboard – a collage of orchestral samples layered into one cacophonous chord (BrooklynVegan). In the instrumental “Elegia,” the band recorded Melvin Glover’s nephews repeating their names (“Ben and Justin”) and layered the voices with Emulator harpsichord and choir patches to create its eerie atmosphere (Reverb Machine).
Did New Order sample Stravinsky or use the Fairlight “orchestra hit”?
Rumours persist that New Order sampled the famous ORCH5 “orchestra hit” – a single staccato chord sampled from Igor Stravinsky’s 1910 Firebird Suite and distributed with the Fairlight CMI sampler – but there is no reliable evidence. The Electronic Sound feature on sampling history, for example, notes that while E-mu launched the Emulator and New Order used it to sample Kraftwerk on “Blue Monday,” it does not mention them ever owning a Fairlight. Industry retrospectives explain that the ORCH5 sample, taken from Firebird, was widely used in early-’80s pop and hip-hop; a Noise Machines article describes how the orchestra hit was sampled from Stravinsky’s music and became a backbone of 1980s production.
Artists like Afrika Bambaataa’s Soul Sonic Force used the Fairlight to play the orchestra hit polyphonically on “Planet Rock” (Noise Machines). However, credible sources do not list New Order among the Fairlight’s users, and the band members themselves have said they stuck with the cheaper Emulator and other samplers. Thus, while the ORCH5 sample may appear in later dance-rock tracks, it was not a documented part of New Order’s sound.
Depeche Mode: from found sounds to rare song samples
Building industrial pop from field recordings
Depeche Mode embraced sampling around the same time as New Order, but their philosophy was different. During the making of Construction Time Again (1983), producer Gareth Jones and the band took microphones to construction sites and factories. They recorded pipes, chains, clanging metal, and toys, then chopped the tape into percussive loops.
A Sound On Sound interview reveals that Jones sampled spinning saucepan lids, ping-pong balls, and even footsteps; he used a Synclavier and an Emulator to turn these found sounds into rhythm tracks. The song “Pipeline” was literally assembled from drumsticks and hammers beating railway tracks and metal sheets at a disused train station. On Some Great Reward (1984), the band layered metallic clangs and industrial noises on “People Are People” and “If You Want,” demonstrating how sampling could serve as both texture and percussion (Albumism).
Explore Todd’s and our listeners’ favorite Depeche Mode songs.
Occasional sampling of other artists
Although Depeche Mode preferred to record their own sounds, there are a few documented cases where they borrowed from other recordings. “People Are People” (1984) was produced at Hansa Studios, where Fad Gadget and members of Einstürzende Neubauten were working with Gareth Jones. According to Post-Punk.com, Jones incorporated overdubs from Fad Gadget’s song “Collapsing New People” into the final mix.
On the 1990 album Violator, Depeche Mode sampled a drum loop from Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” for the song “Halo,” and the track “Clean” uses a bass riff from Pink Floyd’s “One of These Days” (MusicTech). These examples show that while Depeche Mode’s signature sound relied on custom samples, they occasionally repurposed material from rock classics when it fit the mood of a song.
Sampling myth: the Fairlight ORCH5 and Depeche Mode
Like New Order, Depeche Mode have sometimes been rumored to have used the Fairlight’s ORCH5 sample. However, most accounts show they avoided the instrument, relying instead on the Synclavier and Emulator. A later MusicTech interview about Violator notes that when the band started experimenting with loops and sample kits, the ORCH5 “orchestra hit” had already become cliché, so they developed their own sample kits instead. Thus, the orchestral stabs occasionally heard in Depeche Mode tracks are typically custom samples or synthesized sounds rather than the Stravinsky-derived preset.
Other Alternative Acts and the Rise of Sample-Rock
Big Audio Dynamite and Pop Will Eat Itself
Around the same time, other British acts fused rock guitars with sample-heavy production. Big Audio Dynamite’s debut album This Is Big Audio Dynamite (1985) stitched together western-film dialogues, TV adverts, and even snippets of The Clash into dance-rock songs; the album’s liner notes list film samples from A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, illustrating its collage-like approach. Pop Will Eat Itself, a grebo-rock group formed in 1986, used comic-book raps and “bedroom sonic collages” that mixed heavy metal riffs, disco beats, and B-movie clips; their 1987 album Box Frenzy and the follow-up This Is the Day…This Is the Hour…This Is This! pushed sampling to extremes (Far Out Magazine).
Nine Inch Nails and industrial sampling
In the United States, Nine Inch Nails (NIN) melded industrial noise and metal guitars with a cut-and-paste aesthetic. Alternative Press notes that sampling is an “important tool” in NIN’s arsenal: Trent Reznor repurposed field recordings, film clips, and political speeches to build songs like “Head Like A Hole” and “Pinion,” which reverses a David Bowie scream to create a haunting intro. This aggressive sampling distinguished NIN from contemporaries and influenced later industrial rock.
Beck, the Dust Brothers, and the “sample-strewn masterpiece”
By the mid-1990s, sampling had become a central component of alternative rock’s mainstream success. Beck’s 1996 album Odelay is often cited as a “sample-strewn masterpiece.” Producer Mike Simpson of The Dust Brothers explained that they recorded Beck playing riffs, looped them in the computer, and layered them with various samples and instruments (MusicRadar). They drew on funk, soul, and blues records to build tracks like “Where It’s At,” resulting in a collage that married hip-hop textures with alternative songwriting. Instead of clearing dozens of external samples, Beck often replayed riffs himself, creating a hybrid approach where sample-inspired loops co-existed with live instrumentation.
Radiohead’s millennial reinvention of sampling
At the turn of the millennium, Radiohead used sampling to reinvent themselves on Kid A (2000). The Rough Trade retrospective notes that the album features looped and distorted vocal motifs, sampled strings on “How to Disappear Completely” and, most famously, a sample of Paul Lansky’s computer-music piece “Mild und Leise” in “Idioteque.” These techniques signaled a shift from guitar rock to a sample-based, electronic palette, influencing a new generation of alternative artists.
List of Samples in Rock History
The Beatles
- “Tomorrow Never Knows” (1966): multiple homemade tape loops (laughter, orchestral chords, sitar phrase).
- “I Am the Walrus” (1967): live BBC radio broadcast of King Lear woven into the outro.
- “Revolution 9” (1968): a collage of tape snippets, including “number nine,” as well as orchestral and opera fragments.
Pink Floyd
- “Money” (1973): looped sounds of coins, cash register, and paper tearing as rhythm track from Jac Holzman’s much-sampled Authentic Sound Effects series.
- “Keep Talking” (1994): sampled voice of Stephen Hawking from a British Telecom advert.
- “Wish You Were Here” (1975): “Symphony No. 4, Finale 4th Mvmt.” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
New Order
- “Blue Monday” (1983): choir pad sampled from Kraftwerk – “Uranium,”
- “Murder” (1984): dialogue from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Caligula.
- “The Perfect Kiss” (1985): croaking frog samples in breakdown.
- “This Time of Night” (1985): spoken intro by journalist Jeffrey Bernard.
- “Every Little Counts” (1985): Emulator orchestral collage chord.
- “Elegia” (1985): children’s voices (“Ben and Justin”) + Emulator patches.
- “World (The Price of Love)” (1993): “Hot Pants (Bonus Beats)” by Bobby Byrd
Depeche Mode
- “Pipeline” (1983): field recordings of hammers, pipes, and railway tracks.
- “People Are People” (1984): overdubs from Fad Gadget – “Collapsing New People.”
- “If You Want” (1984): metallic industrial noises.
- “Halo” (1990): drum loop from Led Zeppelin – “When the Levee Breaks.”
Big Audio Dynamite
- “E=MC²” (1986): dialogue from Performance (1970) and spaghetti westerns.
Pop Will Eat Itself
- “Can U Dig It?” (1989): film quotes from The Warriors (1979).
Ministry
- “N.W.O.” (1992): repeated samples of President George H.W. Bush’s speeches.
Beck
- “Loser” (1993): drum loop from Johnny Jenkins’ cover of Dr. John + dialogue from Kill the Moonlight.
- “Where It’s At” (1996): multiple samples including Mantronix – “Needle to the Groove,” sex-ed LP snippets, The Frogs, and a funk break from E.U.
U2
- “Daddy’s Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car” (1993): Soviet march horns + loop from MC 900 Ft. Jesus – “The City Sleeps.”
Nine Inch Nails
- “Head Like a Hole” (1989): field recordings & political speech snippets.
- “Pinion” (1992): reversed scream from David Bowie.
- “Closer” (1994): bass drum groove sampled from Iggy Pop – “Nightclubbing.”
Primitive Radio Gods
- “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth…” (1996): chorus hook from B.B. King – “How Blue Can You Get” (1964 live).
Garbage
- “Stupid Girl” (1996): drum loop from The Clash – “Train in Vain.”
- “Push It” (1998): vocal refrain from The Beach Boys – “Don’t Worry Baby.”
The Offspring
- “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)” (1998): intro sample of “Gunter glieben glauten globen” from Def Leppard – “Rock of Ages.”
Len
- “Steal My Sunshine” (1999): multiple elements from “More, More, More” by Andrea Tru Connection.
Radiohead
- “Idioteque” (2000): samples from Paul Lansky – “Mild und Leise” and Arthur Kreiger – “Short Piece.”
- “How to Disappear Completely” (2000): processed sampled strings.
Linkin Park
- “Faint” (2000): samples John Barry’s “Yania Meets Klebb.”
- “Cure for the Itch” (2000): borrows drums from Skull Snaps’ “It’s a New Day” and vocals from “Change the Beat (female version)” by Besides.
Sampling’s evolving role in alternative music.
The evolution of sampling in alternative rock reflects broader technological and cultural shifts. New Order’s “Blue Monday” proved that sampling another record could help create a chart-topping dance-rock hybrid. At the same time, their later experiments with film clips and Emulator sound libraries showed the playful potential of the technology. Depeche Mode took a more industrial route, using microphones and samplers to turn factory noises into pop songs, and only occasionally sampling other artists. Acts like Big Audio Dynamite and Pop Will Eat Itself expanded the collage aesthetic, while Nine Inch Nails, Beck, and Radiohead demonstrated how sample-based production could coexist with alternative songwriting.
Perhaps most importantly, the rumour that New Order used the Fairlight ORCH5 sample from Stravinsky’s Firebird is just that – a rumour. Credible sources confirm that Kraftwerk sampled Kraftwerk via an Emulator, and neither New Order nor Depeche Mode is documented as owning a Fairlight. The orchestra hit may have dominated early hip-hop and pop music. Still, alternative bands forged their own paths through sampling, turning field recordings, movie snippets, and occasionally another band’s beat into some of the most innovative rock music of the last four decades.
