How the Lineage of Sampling influenced Avicii’s “Levels” and Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling”
If you feel that the two songs mentioned in the title sound similar, it is simply because they sampled Etta James’ 1962 hit, “Something’s Got a Hold on Me”. Thanks to Avicii’s “Levels”, which became a hit in 2011, Flo Rida was able to create “Good Feeling”, a hip-hop track. (Flo Rida sampled the part of Avicii’s “Levels” that sampled Etta James’ “Something”.) In a sense, all three songs form a direct musical lineage—one can envision “Something’s Got a Hold” as the grandparent, “Levels” as the parent, and “Good Feeling” as the child.
James’ voice can be heard in Avicii’s video (the only part that is sung) and the refrain of Flo Rida’s track.
But if you open your eyes and look at the music videos accompanying both hits, the similarities end there. Even a cursory glance at their contents—if you are, like me, a person who has the habit of scrolling through videos to understand the narrative in a nutshell—shows that the philosophies put forth in the two videos could not be more different. Here are just some of the obvious differences:
Avicii’s house electronic song bears only two lines: those from Etta James, “Oh, oh, sometimes I get a good feeling, yeah/Get a feeling that I never, never, never, never had before, no, no (I get a good feeling, yeah)”, whereas Flo Rida adds a series of verses voicing his aspirations and dreams.
Flo Rida’s song, as implied by the title, is about the positive emotions that lead one to aim ever higher in life, as is illustrated in his video. On the other hand, Avicii’s music video tells a far darker story, of autonomy (or the lack thereof), as well as an ever-skeptical viewpoint as to what “reality” is.
Most of Avicii’s song is instrumental, while Flo Rida’s version involves two standard verses and choruses, plus a considerable bridge and a final section.
Finally, given that Avicii was a DJ who specialized in electronic music, his work combines multiple tracks of synthesized sound, while Flo Rida’s song involves a standard ensemble for a hip-hop/R & B song that includes an acoustic guitar and several types of drums.
Huh? If you’re a first-time reader, you might be wondering what the four points summarized above have anything to do with our enjoyment of both songs. You would be right, but only partially. If you listen a bit harder and more closely, you may find that these two inherently similar and yet vastly different tracks each have their share of cultural, sonic, and visual implications worth exploring.
Sampling – on Timbre and its Implications
Starting with the most basic quality that all songs need to have, sound, I use the spectrogram as the main tool for analyzing these 2 songs. This is the spectrogram of the introduction and first phrase of Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling”, essentially the first 18 seconds. Note the hollow, gapped quality of the acoustic guitar that accompanies the beginning of Flo Rida’s version of the song. It gives the work a more human and down-to-earth, approachable quality as opposed to the “machine versus person” struggle that pervades “Levels.” (These will be discussed in more detail in the section on music videos.)
Figure 1: "Good Feeling" by Flo Rida, acoustic guitar intro and first phrase
In Figure 2, note how—in Avicii’s version—the electronic pulses fill their columns in completely, with the main element of the work being a figurative “wall of sound” that the listeners are meant to be subsumed into. The red lines at the base of the spectrogram are not the singer’s voice, as in the case of Flo Rida’s song, but the “main melody” of the electronic instruments that can be heard as stronger sounds, even if they are not necessarily higher in frequency. In addition, the almost relentless driving nature of the work is shown in the areas boxed in white, in which spectrographic content repeats within.
Figure 2: “Levels” by Avicii, opening electronic pulse music (white boxes show the “rhythmic quality” of the work)
It would be worth exploring the spectrograms for Etta James’ “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” as it originally is sung, and as it appears in the songs of the two artists who sampled her.
Figure 3 shows a two-part spectrogram in which each instance of the “congregational response” uttering “Yeah” in agreement with Etta James’ declaration of this “good feeling”. Note that the especially intense areas of red in the lower part of the spectrograms, where James’ vocal range peaks, can be likened to goalposts in the frequency fields.
Figure 3: Spectrograms for the first phrase of Etta James’ “Something”
In “Levels” (Figure 4) and “Good Feeling” (Figure 5) the same color patterns appear, with two peaks of high intensity that quickly drop off when the singer concludes her two phrases. The main difference is that they have been pushed to conform to the rhythmic framework of each track. The choral “yeah” is removed from the samples, which is—as we will see later—more suited to the single-person-focused narrative of the videos.
Figure 4: Spectrogram of Etta James’ vocal sample in “Levels”
Figure 5: Spectrogram of Etta James’ vocal sample in Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling”
Transcription and rhythm, or the lack thereof, is another key point in the comparison of these two songs. While both songs use Etta James’ vocal sample, Flo Rida’s version shoehorns it into the driving beat of the quadruple-time metric grid typical to hip-hop or rap. To prove this point, I attempted to transcribe Etta James’ solo up to the point that was sampled, namely the first two lines: “Oh, oh, sometimes I get a good feeling, yeah/Get a feeling that I never, never, never, never had before, no, no (I get a good feeling)”. This is only an approximation of the rhythm, as we can see—through uses of relatively outlandish note values like the dotted eighths linked to thirty-seconds in the second line—Etta James’ rendition is generously suffused with rubato. Additionally, there are chords at the end of each phrase, sung by a chorus of her multiplied voices. This is a common practice in genres like gospel and R & B, both styles associated with James, as it hearkens back to the idea of church singing, antiphony, and call and response.
Figure 6: Transcription of Etta James’ “Something’s Got a Hold on Me”, first two lines (NB: the chords marked “yeah” are sung at pitch, while the top melodic line is an octave lower as shown by the 8vb treble clef.)
Peter Winkler, in his article “Ghost Notes: the Politics of Transcription” (Winkler 1997, 186-87), discusses how his own attempt to transcribe an Aretha Franklin song (“I Never Loved a Man”) met with a bevy of considerations that led to resistance. For example, the rhythm in her song is described as “flexible”, with stylistic elements such as swing also taken into account. Etta James, an artist of a similar genre to Franklin, also takes her time when she first sings “Oh, oh…sometimes, I get a good feeling!”
But that rhythm is, in Flo Rida’s version, quickly made to conform to the strict, beat-driven 4/4 meter that the song is written in. Shown below is a shot of the sheet music, copyrighted to EMI Music Publishing, and one can see that the rhythms are placed in the easiest possible slots to make it playable and singable for whoever wishes to purchase this music. From its inception in James’ song to Avicii’s version to its importation to Flo Rida, and finally here to the basic ground of sheet music, one can see that the process has not been easy. In fact, it would be worth mentioning Tara Rodgers’ stance on sampling, in her 2003 article “On the process and aesthetics of sampling in electronic music production”: the process of sampling is hardly a facile, offhanded act of appropriation, in many cases taking plenty of time and consideration on behalf of the sampler (Rodgers 2003, 313-15.)
Three key points about the reason Avicii’s song can be so easily transplanted to a new setup like that of Flo Rida:
The sample that Flo Rida used was already from Avicii’s “Levels”, which had pre-packaged—so to speak—Etta James’ vocals.
Being a hip-hop artist more often than not requires that you be a DJ (or that you have been one before.) Avicii was a DJ, and Flo Rida was a hip-hop artist. (Katz 2004, 161.)
In the case of Flo Rida specifically, the quotation of Etta James’ “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” can be called a substitution, as he uses it as the hook or introduction to build upon with his own lyrics. (Sewell 2014, 40-41.)
The meaning of cover songs
Lori Burns discusses the nuances in meaning change when cover songs are created, using the terms appropriation and signification. These are important terms to know:
The former means the borrowing of a previously existing version of a song that ultimately is placed in the vein of the new artist(s).
The latter, by contrast, involves subtler elements such as reworking certain aspects to be unexpected, equivocal, or personal in interpretation.
Signifying is an even more complicated element, and Burns gives it four main definitions:
The voice can represent more than one subject (or a subject whose role is ambiguous.)
The song might be addressed to the audience for a social cause, thereby turning it into an “every person’s voice” situation.
On the other hand, the voice might conform to expectations that are set up by the way the singer self-presents.
Finally, certain aspects of vocal timbre can take on instrumental focus that allows it to blend into the music around it. (Burns 2004)
Flo Rida, on the one hand, appropriates Avicii, turning the former’s bleak narrative into fodder for an optimistic, upbeat dance hit. He involves somewhat more personal elements, however, by incorporating images of his daily exercise routine, the places he travels to when concertizing and references to his own life in the added lyrics. One can say that Avicii uses irony in his signification of Etta James’ musical elements, while Flo Rida is earnest in that he makes a song about motivation sound the way most people think it should.
Avicii’s sampled line, and the only lyrics of his song (“Sometimes I get a good feeling”) could bring forth tons of philosophical writing on what it means in the context of his music. Flo Rida thus has a blank canvas to work from, filling even just the first verse with cultural references (“dot com”, “rolling stones”, “Bugatti boy”, “Maybach”). Where Etta James originally sang about love, Flo Rida recontextualizes the “good feeling” as a burst of motivation that inspires him as the narrator to be his very best in all fields of life. This phenomenon, known as Schizophonic Mimesis (Feld 1996), involves the removal of a song from its original environment and its transplantation into a new one. (Steven Feld adapted this concept from renowned musicologist R. Murray Schafer.) While this is usually used when discussing cultural shift in the use of varying genres to invoke a certain “Other” versus the “Self”, in the case of Flo Rida, I chose to invoke Feld to describe how the newer artist (Flo Rida) redefines terms set up by the older artist whom he sampled (Etta James) to create a different meaning.
In terms of signifyin(g) through cover songs, Avicii takes the idea much farther by using only Etta James’ introductory lines as the only lyrics in his song (rather than as a refrain the way Flo Rida does it.) “Levels” takes a multilayered approach, suggesting that the lines heard in the song all happen in the office worker’s head. This is a legitimate explanation given the audiovisual way in which the reference to Sisyphean mythology works, since in most other contexts, the inclusion of these lines would not make sense in the video’s narrative of a mind-numbing 9-to-5 job. The screenshot below shows the location at which the office worker’s mouth is synced to the Etta James sample.
Similarly, Flo Rida’s use of vernacular constructions in the song’s verse (“Good feelin’, good feelin’/I know you got the good feelin’/Let’s get it, let’s get it/Gotta love the life that we livin’”) is another clear instance of signifyin(g).
Intertextuality
What if we used a different word from “homage”? A case in which one artist makes more than a passing reference to the work of another, perhaps even engaging in active dialogue with their source of inspiration, can no longer be called a simple homage. Should the works share some semantic aspects, an intertext would be a better term to describe the situation at hand. Flo Rida, given the blank canvas of Avicii’s song as a pumped electronic dance hit with not much more than the lines taken from Etta James as inspiration, extrapolates on one possible interpretation of the mysterious titular “good feeling”.
In the case of James’ song, the feeling is love. But for Flo Rida? The feeling is better described as a sudden burst of motivation.
René Rusch discusses the possibilities of intertexts in her article “Beyond Homage and Critique? Schubert’s Sonata in C minor, D. 958, and Beethoven’s Thirty-Two Variations in C minor, WoO 80” and “Crossing over with Brad Mehldau’s cover of Radiohead’s ‘Paranoid Android’: The role of jazz improvisation in the transformation of an intertext” (both written in 2013.)
In the former, she posits that Schubert may not have been completely inspired by Beethoven, at least in the positive sense of the word. Rusch writes, “Instead, they [other scholars in comparison to Arthur Godel and Edward T. Cone] suggest that the same iteration can be interpreted as a form of critique—an active response or antipode to Beethoven’s work” (Rusch, Homage and Critique 2.)
Well, fortunately, we do have a case of direct inspiration on our hands, in which Flo Rida did see potential to create another song that at once paid tribute to and was uniquely different from Avicii’s version. In this video that shows a Zoom conversation between Aloe Blacc and celebrated pop producer David Guetta, Guetta himself states that he struggled with copyright claims as the Swedish DJ’s agency was unwilling to have him reference its representee’s creation in another song. As a result, the job was left to Dr. Luke and Cirkut, two other producers, to bring about Flo Rida’s hit. Watch more about it below:
Since the term “cover” is so slippery in a sense, suggesting that the original song has a certain degree of aesthetic integrity that subsequent versions do not, Deena Weinstein and Kurt Mosser (two authors whom Rusch cites in her analysis of the Radiohead/Brad Mehldau article) have noted that terms better used to explain the subtleties at play would be “base song” or “version” (Rusch 2013, Crossing Over 9). Indeed, I find “version” to be a more suitable term given the disparate approaches to feeling and life philosophy exhibited by these two artists.
Visuals and symbolism
Each video engages in deep dialogue between the aural and visual aspects of the song and its accompanying narrative that is deeper than just the surface. In “Levels”, the camera cuts can be seen in sync with the song, phrase by phrase.
I would especially like to explore the idea of the low-angle shot as it pertains to both videos. In the beginning of Avicii’s “Levels”, a song of irony, paradoxes and ambiguity all the way, we see the building (with its “Le7els” logo in reference to the song) shot from worm’s eye view as though to signify the merciless, crushing power of the corporate.
But Avicii is not here to fulfill viewers’ expectations. The critical part of the video where the office worker protagonist is tased into unconsciousness by a security guard also uses a low-angle shot, but instead of portraying him in a position of power, he falls from the desk, thus rendered defenseless.
Note that, earlier on in the videos, Avicii already set out to overturn and upset all presuppositions we might have about life, objects, and reality in general. “The reality looks just like our own, but shot through a gritty and unsaturated lens” (Avicii 2011), the creator notes in his own description of the work, and it is worth noting that Avicii used the word “reality” no fewer than seven times there. And, true to his promise, Avicii seeks that his video has a deliberately toned-down color, by extension a toned-down saturation, and even a toned-down brightness (Osborn 84-85.) The approach contributes to the overall gloomy feeling of the video, further proof that the visual aspects of a work are just as important as their aural ones.
The faces of the people on the office worker’s frame are that of Avicii, signifying his all-present name and its meaning. An even more telling implication of this unexpected gesture is that most of the time, one expects pictures on office workers’ desks to be mostly heartwarming pictures of family members, friends, and/or other loved ones. Here, however, the mere fact that Avicii’s face appears wherever it is clearly visible is a chilling reversal of standard assumptions of life as we know it.
The slow-motion fall of the office worker, when he is tased by the security guard, is in sync with the rhythm section dropping out, reflecting the visual loss of physical control the worker presumably experiences. (There is no removal of the rhythm section in Flo Rida’s version.) However, in Avicii’s version, we can see that there is a definite connection between fantasy versus reality and the presence or absence of a discernable rhythm. We are treated to the sense of grounding that accompanies the perception of a tangible backbeat and the subsequent disorientation that we feel when that backbeat is taken away.
The rhythm section returns gradually when the scene cuts back to reality, but is removed yet again when the hospital workers mess around with the lotus gel and end up being put under its influence. (Again, the old lesson holds true—do not play with matches if you don’t want to start a fire!)
A fascinating instance of the use of diegetic music occurs when the receptionist makes her call. The electronic bleeps and bloops from Avicii’s side happen as part of her phone, beeping as she sends the signal out to reach someone, only to find that—perhaps—there is nobody on the other side.)
Throughout the video, which is itself an ambiguous story (are we supposed to take this video as a story of tragedy, comedy, or both?) it is evident that rhythm and its absence, like a sort of negative space, are the most important elements to keep the listeners and viewers grounded in Avicii’s method of deeply visceral sonic storytelling.
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By contrast, Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling” video is one that negotiates the themes of being in power and in control, of having goals in life and seeking out to fulfill them. In the video’s exercise sequence, Flo Rida manipulates and controls objects most often associated with wealth and physical strength: punching bags, the luggage chain, and his car. More power symbols are evident in the boxing games that he engages in with friends to keep his muscles toned, while another common motif in this video is height. It is represented in the Parisian monuments (like the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame Basilica) which are shot from below, as is Flo Rida himself to give them the impression of great height and thus a high amount of clout.
The confidence is further depicted in the parts of the video that show Flo Rida performing live, suggesting that he has nothing to hide and is willing to give a concert as soon as his fans ask. The way Flo Rida enjoys himself in leisure-time activities, too, shows him as a figure who has control over all the women in his life, such as the gaudily dressed dancing fans who pile on him during the bridge of the song.
But Flo Rida subverts the typical archetype of the hypermasculine rapper who seeks to exert influence with only his fame and wealth alone. He also hopes to inspire the next generation near the end of the video when he shows the children and teens running the marathon with him as well, perhaps a metaphorical marathon for pursuing one’s goals in life.
The last shot shows him and his achievements making up a composite portrait of Flo Rida himself, in stark contrast to the bleak office elevator door that started and ended “Levels”.
It can be summed up simply this way: in “Levels”, the protagonist of the story has no say over what happens to him in life, and perhaps no one cares—while in “Good Feeling”, the opposite is true. The story’s hero is the center of attention, driving the narrative and fearlessly showing off all aspects of his glorious life as a celebrated musical artist.
Conclusion
Based on Etta James’ original work “Something’s Got a Hold on Me”, I’ve compared “Levels” by Avicii and “Good Feeling” by Flo Rida with focus on different analytical aspects:
Sampling and its meanings
Cover songs, appropriation, and signification or signifyin(g)
Intertextuality
Visuals and symbolism
Through this post, “Good Feeling” has alternately been called a cover, an homage, and an intertext, and all three interpretations are correct. On the surface, it seems as if nothing about these two songs is the same other than the backbeat. The music videos tell such different stories! But a closer look shows that Avicii, in fact, paved the way for Flo Rida with a blank canvas so that even in these similar-sounding songs, the disparate emotional meanings, audiovisuals, and human/machine timbre can all unfold in several dimensions at once.
Addendum
If you’re interested in other covers of “Good Feeling”, a remarkably tribute-encouraging song, I suggest you listen to Lindsey Stirling’s violin classical/pop crossover cover here:
Bibliography
Bane, Theresa. Encyclopedia of Imaginary and Mythical Places, 2014. McFarland. p. 28.
Burns, Lori, and Alyssa Woods. “Authenticity, appropriation, signification: Tori Amos on gender, race, and violence in covers of Billie Holiday and Eminem.” Music Theory Online 10.2 (2004).
Feld, Steven. “pygmy POP A Genealogy of Schizophonic Mimesis.” Yearbook for Traditional Music 28 (1996): 1-35.
Katz, Mark. “Music in 1s and 0s: The Art and Politics of Digital Sampling.” From Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music (2004): 137-157.
O’Hara, William. “The Techne of YouTube Performance: Musical Structure, Extended Techniques, and Custom Instruments in Solo Pop Covers.” Music Theory Online 28.3 (2022).
Osborn, Brad. “Interpreting Visuals,” in Interpreting Music Video: Popular Music in the Post-MTV Era. Routledge, 2021.
Rodgers, Tara. “On the process and aesthetics of sampling in electronic music production.” Organised Sound 8.3 (2003): 313-320.
Rusch, René. “Beyond Homage and Critique? Schubert’s Sonata in C minor, D. 958, and Beethoven’s Thirty-Two Variations in C minor, WoO 80.” Music Theory Online 19.1 (2013).
__________________. “Crossing over with Brad Mehldau’s cover of Radiohead’s ‘Paranoid Android’: The role of jazz improvisation in the transformation of an intertext.” Music Theory Online 19.4 (2013).
Sewell, Amanda. “Paul’s Boutique and Fear of a Black Planet: digital sampling and musical style in hip hop.” Journal of the Society for American Music 8.1 (2014): 28-48.
We Rave You. “David Guetta & Aloe Blacc discuss Avicii’s ‘Levels’ and how Guetta almost recreated it for FloRida [sic]”, uploaded by We Rave You, April 29, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwVRy9DKuW4
Winkler, Peter. “Writing ghost notes: The poetics and politics of transcription.” From Keeping score: music, disciplinarity, culture (1997): 169-203.