Every sample used on PinkPantheress’ Fancy That

Samples: Underworld, “Dark & Long (Dark Train Mix)”



Underworld, perhaps best known for their contribution to Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting soundtrack, released “Dark & Long” in 1994. Filled with a gurgling bassline and tension-building synths, the track has the feel of dark and dingy club elevated to stadium-sized levels. Pink adds a two-step beat and uses the sample to illuminate the story of a relationship kept under wraps.

Samples: “Romeo” and “Always Be There” by Basement Jaxx

Pink was born the same year U.K. dance duo Basement Jaxx released “Romeo,” a wonky and effusively uptempo banger, in 2001. Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe have become mentor-like figures to her, though, with Pink recently telling Mixmag of their time together: “They were very pivotal in my learning. I went in there to make beats and songs with them, but I ended up leaving by just seeing their creative process and style and picking their brains…I ended up sampling them. I don’t want to leak how they work, but just seeing how they reach certain sounds or develop ideas was really interesting.”

“Girl Like Me” is one of three Fancy That songs that sample Basement Jaxx, showing the influence they had on her creative process.

Samples: Panic! At the Disco, “Do You Know What I’m Seeing?”

At 2 minutes and 57 seconds long, “Tonight” is practically an opus by PinkPantheress’ brevity-loving standards. That added time gives her room to begin with an orchestral flourish that tapped-in listeners will recognize as coming from “Do You Know What I’m Seeing?” by Panic! At the Disco. The album it comes from, Pretty Odd, released in 2008, marked the band’s shift away from their emo roots and into a more Beatles-y direction.

Samples: Just Jack, “Starz in their Eyes” and Basement Jaxx “Oh My Gosh”

PinkPantheress and this specific Just Jack song go way back. She first sampled the 2007 track, a one hit wonder in the U.K., on her song “Attracted To You.” It’s a little strange, but not unwelcome, to hear her go back to the song for a second time on “Stars,” which mixes sexual tension with paranoid thoughts and the fear of getting caught.

Samples: Groove Armada “Suntoucher” and Nardo Wick “Who Want Smoke?”

Groove Armada, like Basement Jaxx, were big in the late ‘90s/early 2000s U.K. dance music scene where groups could spend their summers playing super clubs in Ibiza and festival slots before Robbie Williams or Oasis. On “Noises,” the mellow and spacey “Suntoucher” is thrown into Pink’s blender alongside a snippet of Jacksonville rapper Nardo Wick asking “What the fuck is that,” lifted from his 2021 track “Who Wants Smoke?”

Samples: The Streets, “It’s Too Late” and William Orbit feat. Sugababes and Kenna, “Spiral”

The Streets’ Mike Skinner was an early British pioneer of home production and creating beats on a laptop. Perhaps Pink sees a kindred spirit in the lairy rapper or perhaps she just loves the way he creates an atmosphere with strings on his 2002 track “It’s Too Late.” “Nice To Know You” also features an interpolation of the melody on William Orbit’s “Spiral,” as sung in 2006 by Sugababes, the U.K. girl group famed for their many line-up changes. Besides Pink, Jamie xx previously sampled their collaboration with the electronic producer on his track “Beat For.”

Samples: Adina Howard, “Freak Like Me”

Pink taps into another song made famous by the Sugababes for “Stateside,” though the sample officially belongs to Adina Howard and her song “Freak Like Me.” The G-funk track was first a hit in 1995 but only became a pop staple in Britain when the Sugababes covered it in 2002. Adding to the 2000’s BBC Radio 1 aesthetic, “Stateside” has a melody that also seemingly interpolates fellow Brit Estelle’s “American Boy,” another song about finding love across the Atlantic.

Samples: Basement Jaxx “Good Luck”

PinkPantheress returns to her mentors Basement Jaxx with a song that references them in two different ways. “Romeo” shares a name with one of the group’s biggest hits but actually samples another of their songs, “Good Luck.”