Girl Talk's Mash-up McNuggets

Juxtaposition. A $10 word that is the crux of Girl Talk's latest (and for that matter every) album, Feed The Animals. Greg Gillis is Girl Talk - a downright polarizing artist - hellbent on taking his brilliant 2006's Night Ripper to the next level. Essentially the musical equivalent of George Dubya- you're either with him or against him - Gillis doesn't allow for middle ground with his art. That's because his “songs” are constructed from all that has come before him.

Gillis serves up a musical stew of others' lyrical snippets, beats, and music to create something familiar, yet wholly unique. Hip-hop and slightly tweaked, yet quickly recognizable guitar parts, are his meat and 'taters. Sticking with my gastronomic analogy, Gillis' unique placement of obscure and ubiquitous samples provide the broth that brings it all into a steaming hot bowl of…well, that depends on interpretation. Detractors say it's derivative and akin to thievery. Supporters praise Gillis for creating postmodern sonic pastiches that stand on their own as original constructions. I lean with the latter, due to Gillis' inventive brilliance.

The concept of a mash-up - taking two songs and blenderizing them - is this decade's version of a cover song. Like most cover songs, a mash-up's noble intent is often not enough to prevent a horrid end product. Gillis takes mash-up's ideology a step further and then proceeds to clone it repeatedly in each "song". What the listener often gets is an alternately awkward and brilliant 25 sample pile-up that is the result of a four-decade excavation of pop, rock, hip-hop, soul and funk. Feed The Animals finds Gillis one step closer to perfecting this formula.

Outkast and UGK get busy over the Spencer Davis Group’s 41-year-old chugging bass line/organ intro of “Gimme Some Lovin’.” Unk’s unstoppable club jam of the last 18 months, “Walk It Out,” and Pete Townshend’s 25-year-old “Let My Love Open The Door” exchange greetings. Rapper T.I. and Sinead O’Connor bounce off each other while a Too Short line about fellatio assumes the roll of chorus. At least for 15 seconds. That’s just the album’s first track, “Play Your Part (pt 1)” - a primer for the 53 minute ADD fest to come.

Gillis has a knack for taking older favorites and slamming them up against the latest hits. The result is a series of memory lane strolls and “WTF?!?” moments that re-contextualize a few generations’ worth of musical nuggets. Avril Lavigne’s smash “Girlfriend” and the well from which it draws (Toni Basil’s “Mickey”) are snipped, clipped, and reshaped into a canvas for Dolla to rap, “Who The Fuck Is That?” over. This is just the first minute of “Shut The Club Down,” which eventually plucks Rod Stewart’s “Young Turks” from the back of pop music’s collective consciousness, re-imagining it as a backing track for Ahmad before Lil’ Jon crashes the party altogether. "WHAT! WHAT?!?"

Gillis has effectively bridged the gap between ubiquitous and obscure. There are tons of these head-scratching and booty-shaking moments on Feed The Animals, commanding multiple listens to absorb it all.

Girl Talk’s aural collages invite music fans regardless of age or genre loyalty. The truly initiated will discover new within the recognizable and never hear the familiar the same way again. There's a little something in this stew for everyone to love or hate.

Whether you call him a a genius or an easy target for copyright infringement lawyers, Gillis acknowledges every sample in his liner notes to avoid becoming the latter, yet never fully realizes the former. Instead, Gillis and his creations lie in the gray area. A place his audience and critics will not be spending a lot of time in. This particular blogger, however, has leased a timeshare in Gillis' musical scavenger hunt.

And for all y'all music nerds like myself, here's a cheat sheet of samples on Feed The Animals.