Choppin' Pop By 1956 serious changes were taking place as sound artists continued to explore the creative use of the new tape medium. There were some artists who refused any serious change in their work. Among these were two men who released compositions that had only comical changes. Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman spliced together recordings of their voices with popular commercial recordings. Their first experiment, 'The Flying Saucer' record was the first successful pop hit made mainly of samples of other songs. The theme of the record was a Martian invasion, and just like Orson Welles live broadcast, some stations were hesitant to play the record for fear it would cause panic. Its doubtful how much panic the record ever caused, most people knew it was a spoof when they heard Little Richard's voice quickly cut in and out. But those quick cuts in and out weren't fast enough for record companies to ignore. The court battles that followed raised a new set of questions regarding artists rights and the use of recordings. Many of the questions remain unanswered to this day as Hip Hop and other artists continue to fight legal battles in the pursuit of art and commercial success. Chuck Miller puts their great work in perfect context: In fact, Goodman's snippet records may have been the rock equivalent of the compositions of John Cage, David Tudor and George Rochberg - using tape recorders and phonograph records as instruments, slicing up reel-to-reel tapes and resplicing them at random; creating new recordings from the fragments of old ones. It was the music of indeterminacy, as Luciano Berio composed "Sinfonia" by quoting from a Mahler symphony and fragments of a theatrical production. It was new uses for old technology, as Ferrante and Teicher plucked the wires of a "prepared piano" for a harp-like sound. Music barriers were being torn down, as Edgard Varese's aural symphonies influenced the work of Frank Zappa; and as Karl-Heinz Stockhausen's electronic compositions left an indelible imprint on the Beatles' "Revolution No. 9." And Dickie Goodman may have been the first to turn this "music of indeterminacy" into pop recordings. Other unsuccessful attempts at "break-in" records could be found as early as the 1920's, according to syndicated radio host and music expert Dr. Demento. "In 1928, The Happiness Boys (Billy Jones and Ernest Hare) recorded a comedy sketch for Victor called 'Twisting the Dials,' about listening to the radio. It used a few snatches of other phonograph records to simulate the music that was encountered while 'twisting the dials.' The record was not a big seller. Spike Jones and Stan Freberg often used quotes from existing songs for humorous effect, but not bits of actual hit records. I would say that for all intents and purposes, 'The Flying Saucer' was the first successful release in that genre."