Talk of the Town

There's mash-ups, and then there's Girl Talk -- the nom de plume of Gregg Gillis, a 26 year-old Pittsburgh whiz-kid producer who has been making waves with his new record Feed The Animals. If you thought Danger Mouse got a little creative with the Grey Album back in '04 you really ain't seen nothing yet until you've given this new album a spin. And if the opening vocal track to the album's first cut, "Play Your Part (Pt. 1)," sounds familiar, you better buckle up, because this is one's going to be a pleasantly bumpy ride. For you see, in the next fifty-three minutes this might happen about, oh, another 300 times. No, I'm not talking about a disc to accompany a power hour (although I'd like to see you try). Rather, what we're given is a truly remarkable display of one man's creative ability to seamlessly intertwine everything from Jay-Z to Twisted Sister. Yes, being dead serious here. But here's the catch, he gets away with it -- both musically AND legally. Thanks to the fair-use principle of U.S. Copyright law, Gillis doesn't have dish out the royalties unless he uses more than thirty seconds of a sample (which he doesn't). In fact, I challenge you to find a sample that comes anywhere close to said thirty seconds, because just a little heads up -- it ain't gonna happen. And here's the best part, Gillis is going all Radiohead on us. If you go to Girl Talk's MySpace page, you can name your price to purchase the album (hint, hint: go there NOW!). Bottom line, anyone who can figure out how to interweave "15 Step," "No Diggity," and "The Weight" in the same song gets an A in my book.

My Rating: 9.0/10