I wasn’t really going to do a review on this, because it kind of exists outside of the realm of reviews and regular albums that have come out this year simply because of the way it is put together. But since this has been such a controversial release that has been praised by many and panned by many as well, I thought I would throw in my two cents on this album. It was released last week Radiohead style and it is certainly an album everyone should go ahead and pick up, considering the pay what you want price of admission. Girl Talk’s, or Greg Gillis’, style of music is that of the mashup, namely combining songs together to create an entirely new piece of music. This is akin to sampling in the rap world, but here the songs are almost entirely a combination of existing songs put together into this 53 minute mix.

A lot of the controversy surrounding this album involves the sampling itself, that none of the samples are cleared legally, and also that the music is created entirely out of other peoples’ work. I understand these criticisms, and I think they certainly are valid, but I think that it doesn’t really change Gillis’ creation into being completely worthless.

I think that this album doesn’t really so much exist to be an album by itself, it really is a time capsule, or document of pop music in today’s world. I think that where rappers and bands are all trying to distance themselves from what has come before, this album does a great job of pitting all of these artists who are in the collective popular sphere right now against each other in a sort of “look where we are now” kind of way. To me this album strikes as a document and tribute to the creativity and originality in music today, and how all of these artists sampled coming from very different places are really not so different at all in the long run. Where some music is dismissed as being pop-centric, or too preachy, or too weird, in Gillis’ hour long mashup those labels don’t exist at all and the music brought together just exists on its own in a sea of other songs and sounds.

It certainly is meant to be a party record, and in that sense it completely succeeds, and anyone having a house party that has this will most likely throw it on. To me the real appeal is the way it plays all of these popular artists from all different walks of the scene, Kanye to Jay-Z to Soulja Boy to Of Montreal to Yo La Tengo, and on and on, together in a way that is really cool and interesting. There are just some priceless combinations in there like the Jay-Z/Radiohead combo in “Set It Off” and the Public Enemy/Heart combo in “No Pause” (awesome). Sure it isn’t an originally written and recorded album, but it certainly is never trying to be. I think the cool thing about this is that it is essentially a term paper on music today from a guy who is clearly a huge fan of all of it, and it is brought together with that kind of ethic, and I think that makes it work very well.

Girl Talk - Set It Off - From Feed The Animals
Girl Talk - No Pause - From Feed The Animals