Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

rocadelpunk

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2001
5,590
1
81
link to where you can download

girltalk myspace page

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review of his first album - night ripper - tinymixtapes

Were LeBron James to skip town, Gregg Gillis would have a shot at being the most popular guy in either Pittsburgh or Cleveland. Gillis, for whom an appropriated stage name (Girl Talk = TLC song, board game, YA novels, etc) is the only appropriate stage name, is a soft-spoken, charming dude who just happened to live across the hall from me in college at Cleveland?s Case Western Reserve University. He?s also managed to create a ridiculous oeuvre of mash-up that screams GENRE-DEFINER so loudly that you almost said it out loud and sounded like an asshole.

The first time I spoke to Gregg, he was walking across campus clad in the black-framed glasses he still occasionally sports and an Elephant 6 t-shirt he doesn?t. I figured he might wanna talk about the Olivia Tremor Control or some shit. Instead, he told me he wasn?t into that so much anymore. "I?m doing this electronic shit now," he mumbled. Now that Girl Talk wears Pitchfork?s hallowed BEST NEW MUSIC laurels, it may be safe to say that my initial disappointment was misinformed. When Unstoppable dropped a couple years back, complete with a video for "Touch 2 Feel" showcasing Gillis? gifts for choreography, basketball, and posing for countless photographs, it became clear that Girl Talk was on the cusp of owning the party. Now that the long-awaited Night Ripper (Gregg: "Do you think people will think this is about farting in bed?") is here, Gillis has officially made your summer party his bitch.

The world is perfectly ripe for Night Ripper, a 42-minute cum fiesta of mashed-up pop, rock, and rap with original beats by Gillis. Since the minor commotion caused by Danger Mouse?s Beatles vs. Jay-Z experiment The Grey Album, everyone?s been waiting for this sort of masterstroke. Sure, Britney plus Biggie would be cool (they?re both here, of course), but wouldn?t it be tight to have Pixies, Pavement, and Neutral Milk Hotel in there for our own little gee-whiz moments? Thank you, Girl Talk. Here, Gillis takes the best parts of every song you ever liked and strings them together to create the hottest party mix you can fathom. Yeah, I know you downloaded it as soon as our friends at Pitchfork told you to, but I know this motherfucker ? throw some change at his shit.

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Review from pitchforkmedia of night ripper

The element of surprise is gone from the mash-up. Hollertronix and 2 Many DJs mastered the technique, made it a staple of their sets, and next, everyone on the block was mix-matching hip-hop to electro and indie rock. The idea that two songs blender-ized can recombine to create something wholly new is thrilling in theory, but the execution is usually sloppy or samey, either simply aligning two similar beat structures or pairing up two completely disparate tracks for the slapstick novelty of a jokey title.

Pittsburgh native Greg Gillis (Girl Talk) absolutely detonates the notions of mash-up on his third album, the violently joyous Night Ripper. Rather than squeeze two songs that sorta make sense together into a small box, Gillis crams six or eight or 14 or 20 songs into frenetic rows, slicing fragments off 1980s pop, Dirty South rap, booty bass, and grunge, among countless other genres. Then he pieces together the voracious music fan's dream: a hulking hyper-mix designed to make you dance, wear out predictable ideas, and defy hopeless record-reviewing.

Night Ripper doesn't stretch the boundaries of mash-ups because there were no boundaries to begin with. As an illegal art form, it's surprising no one came along with an idea like this sooner. Still, it's doubtful they'd have the sturdy, meticulous hand that Gillis flaunts here. The record's pacing is astonishing-- with more than 150 sample sources (all thanked in the liner notes), it ricochets from Top 40 hits to obscure gems and back again like a cool breeze, clocking in at less than 42 minutes. The sampling is pure precision, slotting razor-thin (but highly recognizable) guitar stabs on top of blaring synths on top of anthemic rap couplets and so on, all at breakneck speed.

Part of the fun of listening is trying to figure out the source of each fragment used on these tracks. Familiar as they may be, you'll never place every sample. But at the risk of getting sucked into Gillis' name-game vortex, an example speaks to the power. "Smash Your Head" glides into the siren keyboards of Lil Wayne's "Fireman" less than a minute in, then abruptly shifts into the crushingly dense riffs of Nirvana's "Scentless Apprentice" while Young Jeezy spits the familiar flames of "Soul Survivor", before it all tumbles into a Pharcyde-Elton John-Biggie somersault. On "Minute by Minute", Gillis even slots Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" up next to Juelz Santana's "There It Go (The Whisper Song)". There are no ties, other than the miracle of chopping and looping.

Due to its overwhelming number of unlicensed sources, Night Ripper is practically begging for court drama. In the event of litigation, Gillis' label has armed themselves with a Fair Use argument, citing artists' rights to liberally sample in the creation of new works. Whether that'll hold any water in a courtroom remains to be seen, but for listeners it's an afterthought. Some may dock him points for lack of originality, but Gillis' schizophrenic attitude toward pop music is so novel it's impossible to stay mad at. Time will tell whether it's still fresh in 12 months, when the very recent samples (M.I.A., Gwen Stefani, Webbie) lose their chic appeal next to Smokey Robinson, the Pixies, and Public Enemy-- but for 2006, Night Ripper is the soundtrack of the summer.


 

abaez

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2000
7,158
1
81
I love GT, but only his live show, which are completely insane and gets EVERYONE sweaty and dancing (just check out some vids).

Listening to his albums in your room though.. meh.. doesn't really give you the same experience.
 

Gothgar

Lifer
Sep 1, 2004
13,463
1
0
I had to listen to the first 9 seconds of the first song to realize this is very not my thing, enjoy :)