Song Sample Response – Faith Mitchell

In 2020, the popular boy band Why Don’t We released a song called “Slow Down.” In this song, the band sampled “1979” by The Smashing Pumpkins, which was released in 1995. As mentioned on the WhoSampled website, you can hear the “1979” sample at the very beginning of “Slow Down” and throughout the entirety of this Why Don’t We song. For reference, the sample Why Don’t We used starts 7 seconds into “1979” and continues throughout most of this The Smashing Pumpkins song as well. Considering this, I think what makes “Slow Down” unique is the complete change of lyrics from those in “1979” and the addition of claps, humming, etc. I think that Why Don’t We chose to use this sample maybe because they liked the song or it worked well with what they were putting together. But I also think the nostalgia of 90s songs and the fact that trends from the 90s are returning contributed to Why Don’t We’s reasoning for using the sample. The Smashing Pumpkins was a pretty popular and successful band in the 90s, and people still comment on their “1979” music video (which has 150 million views on YouTube compared to the 7 million views that Why Don’t We’s “Slow Down” music video got) about how nostalgic they are about the song and the 90s themselves. So, Why Don’t We might have wanted to bring some of these feelings back to the present day and to bring this old popular song back to life. Using this particular sample may interest fans of The Smashing Pumpkins and introduce them to Why Don’t We, and vice versa (since the 90s are such a big trend right now).