Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" (1981) is famous for many things — the brooding atmosphere, the cryptic lyrics, Collins' intense vocal delivery — but nothing in the song is more iconic than the drum fill that arrives at 3:40. After nearly four minutes of sparse, electronic ambience, Collins unleashes a massive gated-reverb drum fill that still sounds like the sky cracking open. The sound was achieved using a technique accidentally discovered by engineer Hugh Padgham, who left a talkback microphone feeding through a heavily compressed limiter.

That drum sound — huge, gated, impossibly dramatic — changed the sound of 1980s pop and rock production almost overnight. In hip-hop, it became a cinematic sample, used when producers wanted maximum drama and impact. The record demonstrates that sampling isn't just about loops and breaks — sometimes a single three-second moment contains more power than an entire album.