I've got an American birthday gift for you readers. If you are a fan of Girl Talk follow this link to download the new album for free ( or for a price a la Radiohead In Rainbows for the generous) before the September release date. Do it quickly because I think Illegal Art is not planning on doing this forever. I've heard the new album and let me tell you... It fucking hard. Sure Girl Talk is kind of a flash in the pan, and it seems to some like Night Ripper is the best and most creative album he is capable of creating, but any thinking like that is wrong and Feed the Animals proves it. The mash up gimmic on Night Ripper smacked most of the music nerd crowd in the face by showing that remixing and reworking popular tracks can create brand new music better than the individual samples themselves. Night Ripper was beyond anything created by remixers and mashup artists that came before it, pushing the boundaries of the genre to places unthinkable. Feed The Animals picks right up where Night Ripper left off and continues its assault of the way we traditionally understand the art of music. You may ask What more can Greg Gillis do? Isn't this album going to be more of the same? Didn't Night Ripper squeeze everything out of the Girl Talk "act"? Well the answer is much more, no, and no. With over 300 samples Gillis packs more tracks into the album and fuses them together in way that is far more reckless (in a good way) than any mash up artist out there. Girl Talk started out as more of a boom-bip noise outfit, but he has matured into an accessible-frenzied-fueled mainstream party maestro.
The genius of Feed the Animals is the ability of Gillis to stretch the musical gene pool he draws from to unfathomable distances. On "Like This," one 90-second sequence alone works in Beyoncé, Rick Astley, Nine Inch Nails and Yo La Tengo, among others. He mixes MIA's Boyz with the Cranberry's Dreams. The result is slightly sloppy, but the attempt is so praise worthy that any shortcomings are quickly forgotten. Sinead Oconnor and Lil Wayne? Yes he does. You can view all 300 samples, what artist's tracks are used, and at what point in the song they are mashed here at wikipedia. The best part about what Gillis does is that he doesn't feel the need to only take the hooks from songs. By taking the drum line or symbol crash from one song and hammering it into the vocals of another song, he produces the best of both worlds which sounds unlike either song, but still manages to keep the listener's emotional attachment (and build on it) to those songs they have grown to love. This is the ultimate 4th of July picnic party album, so download it, put on your stupid Kanye West glasses and be the coolest (or dorkiest depending on who you ask) kid at the picnic. If you don't believe me just listen below:
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