Have you ever been listening to a song and suddenly recognized a bit of another song? In music, the use of songs and sounds to create a new song is called sampling. Sometimes you can easily tell which song has been sampled, but other times the sample has been edited and remixed so much that it’s completely different from its original version.

Songs aren’t the only thing that gets sampled into new music. Sound effects, audio clips from videos, and even the noises your household appliances make can be added to a song. Here are 12 songs that used samples from unexpected, and sometimes strange, places.

1. “Toxic” by Britney Spears
2. “Heartbreaker” by Mariah Carey
3. “Uma Thurman” by Fall Out Boy
4. “Vegas Lights” by Panic! At the Disco
5. “My Strange Addiction” by Billie Eilish
6. “Twisted” by Usher ft. Pharrell
7. “Garbage Pale Kids” by JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown
8. “System Blower” and “Face Melter” by Death Grips
9. “After Hours” by A Tribe Called Quest
10. “Hey!” by MF Doom
11. “Down” by Marian Hill
12. Ultimate Care II by Matmos

“Toxic” by Britney Spears

Britney Spears won a Grammy for her 2004 hit, “Toxic,” and some might say that she owes that Grammy to a 1981 Bollywood film. The high-pitched string notes that play in “Toxic” were sampled from “Tere Mere Beech Mein” (“Between You and Me”) by Lata Mangeshkar and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam. The original song appears in the Bollywood romantic tragedy, Ek Duuje Ke Liye (Made for Each Other).

“Heartbreaker” by Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey’s 1999 song, “Heartbreaker,” featuring Jay Z, samples a rather obscure song, “Attack of the Name Game.” The song was created in 1982 by Stacy Lattisaw, and its lyrics discuss playing the Name Game with an alien who just arrived in his spaceship (yes, really). Carey said she liked the “retro, cutesy” sound and decided to use the opening as a sample in “Heartbreaker.”

“Uma Thurman” by Fall Out Boy

Many Fall Out Boy fans have probably never heard of or seen the 1960s sitcom The Munsters. But they would instantly recognize the guitar riff in “The Munsters Theme.” That’s because Fall Out Boy sampled it throughout their 2015 song, “Uma Thurman.” For older fans, it’s a nice jolt of nostalgia for the black-and-white TV series about a family of monsters. Thanks, Fall Out Boy, for keeping The Munsters in the public’s memory!

“Vegas Lights” by Panic! At the Disco

You don’t normally associate Panic! At the Disco’s emo-pop and electropop sounds with the bright and cheery Sesame Street. I mean, can you imagine Big Bird singing “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”? Well, that will most likely never happen, but Panic! At the Disco did sample the song “Number 5” from a 1970 episode of Sesame Street for their 2013 song, “Vegas Lights.” The sound of kids counting appears in both the original and “Vegas Lights.”

“My Strange Addiction” by Billie Eilish

It’s safe to say that Billie Eilish is a fan of the U.S. series The Office. And, same. In her 2019 song, “My Strange Addiction,” Eilish sampled the “Scarn Dance” and other audio clips from The Office episode “Threat Level Midnight,” when the cast is acting out Michael Scott (Steve Carell)’s action-movie script. It honestly makes the song. When talking about making “My Strange Addiction,” Eilish said, “it’s about strange addictions, and The Office is mine.”

“Twisted” by Usher ft. Pharrell

Pharrell Williams seems out to prove that you can sample pretty much anything in your songs. He produced Usher’s 2012 song, “Twisted,” and sampled audio from a Pennsylvania Town Hall that aired on CNN in 2009. Whenever you hear “Wait a minute” in Usher’s song, know that that was actually a Republican senator trying to calm down the crowd in front of him. Williams has used the same sample in several other songs, either sung by him or produced for other artists.

“Garbage Pale Kids” by JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown

The opening of “Garbage Pale Kids” by JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown samples audio from two Japanese commercials. The first is an advertisement for meat released by the Nichiro Corporation in 1985, and the second is an ad for a 1983 tennis video game from Nintendo. These artists must have enjoyed Japanese marketing from the ’80s, as they have also sampled other commercials in more explicit songs, so be prepared for that if you decide to check it out.

“System Blower” and “Face Melter” by Death Grips

Death Grips like to sample unusual sounds in their songs. Case in point: their 2012 song, “System Blower” samples Venus and Serena Williams grunting during their tennis matches and the sound of the Vancouver Skytrain leaving the station. Some fans also swear that the 2011 song “Face Melter” samples a printer or fax machine, though it actually features a part of the 1983 song “Attitude” by Bad Brains.

“After Hours” by A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest revolutionized rap and hip-hop in the ’90s. Their music sampled jazz, soul, and R&B songs, which was completely different than the gangster rap common at the time. But their 1990 song “After Hours” wins the award for the most creative sample the band used. In this song, you can hear a frog-croak sound effect that was produced by Universal Studios. It’s pretty “ribbiting” to listen to.

“Hey!” by MF Doom

Any sharp-eared Scooby Doo fans will recognize clips of the intro to The New Scooby-Doo Movies in MF Doom’s 1999 song, “Hey!” The sample fits right in, as you hear the Mystery Inc. gang yelling “hey!” over and over again. You can also hear Scooby yelping and the theme song music throughout Doom’s song. The question we all have now is if those meddling kids have ever unmasked MF Doom.

“Down” by Marian Hill

When creating their hit single, “Down,” Jeremy Lloyd of the band Marian Hill found an interesting sample to use. He sampled an ASMR video of someone sanding wood. It’s a very soft sound, underneath the piano and vocals, but once you catch it, you won’t be able to unhear it. Lloyd also sampled pen clicking sounds for “Down.”

Ultimate Care II by Matmos

If we had to pick, Matmos would win for the most unexpected sample source, as the duo was able to create an entire album of music with just the sounds from their Whirlpool washing machine. The 2016 album is titled Ultimate Care II, after the model of the washing machine, and the music lasts for the same amount of time as an average wash cycle. What will they think of next? An air fryer album?

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