Girl Talk is breaking all the rules with his latest full-length album. There is not one original beat, note, or lyric on the mash-up star’s fourth LP, and lawyers are standing by. This time around Greg Gillis (aka Girl Talk) asked his record label, appropriately named Illegal Art, what the boundaries were this time around. The label came back and demanded that he make the record he wants to make. Any issues that arise will be dealt with later. Gillis did just that, as the number of samples used in each of his songs have reached an all-time high. One track even mashes an impressive 35 songs in less than four minutes.
Feed the Animals features 14 obnoxious tracks that defy genre and push the limits of art. Gillis is the most talented artist who does what he does. These songs aren’t exactly mash-ups in the original sense. They are musical and lyrical collages of popular culture. Although there is not one original note, each song sounds fresh and new, as if you never heard it before. Gillis has a real gift for choosing which songs to mix/overlap/mash. His creations have gotten more complex and dense. I recall hearing elements of up to five songs all at once. The beauty of the track was that all of the songs were completely discernible.
Feed the Animals features several standout mash ups. Highlights of the album include Jay-Z rapping ‘Roc Boys’ over the dense guitars of Radiohead’s ‘Paranoid Android’, Kelly Clarkson singing ‘Since You Were Gone’ over Nine Inch Nail’s Grammy-winning track ‘Wish,’ and Ton Loc spitting out ‘Wild Thing’ to the melody of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Gypsy.’ The funny thing about the latter is that ‘Wild Thing’ is a sampled song in itself, creating a paradoxical wormhole of a mash-up that defies all convention.
The album is not perfect and will lag at times during songs you are not necessarily a fan of. That does not prevent admiration of the skill that goes into the process. The album immediately revealed something very obvious to me upon first listen: the quality of hip hop music is at an all-time low. You could even say the same about pop. No wonder Gillis does what he does. Some of the songs cannot stand up on their own. Mixing the best elements of each song with the lyrics and beats of others actually improves the quality. You have to hear it to believe it.
Greg Gillis is breaking rules with Feed the Animals. Maybe the album’s title is a reference to this, referring to feeding the animals although the sign at the zoo forbids it. If that’s the case, Gillis is not just feeding the animals, he is letting them out of their cages to roam free. An incredible fan video cutting up the videos from each song referenced in the track, ‘Shut Down the Club, can be seen here:
The entire album is currently being streamed on Girl Talk’s MySpace page.
