Note: Girl Talk's newest album All Day, is available as a free download via his website here. Also, the wikipedia entry in which fans identify samples is here. There are 373. Whoa.
Maybe this is a cop-out to review as a single track, but as an individually wrapped, single-serving treat is how Mr. Gillis intended his latest opus to be enjoyed. How do you even review an album like this anyway? On what merits do you gauge its success? Samples per minute? Zaniest artist pairings? How many of the sampled songs I downloaded after listening? Gillis has always made his work on his own terms, while the pop-music he samples decays and disintegrates at an ever-increasing rate. Most songs peak and fizzle out in a matter of a couple weeks, while the truly great ones are lucky to chart for a month before they are consumed by the shifting tides. This environment is not conducive to Greg Gillis' sonic collage, but he still finds ways to arrange and assemble recognizable bitlets from hundreds of songs that had previously been confined to the shadowy depths of an iTunes playlist or a blackout Karaoke night and breathe new life into them. Girl Talk's albums are immensely enjoyable because they are incredibly subjective. Each listener will recognize different samples and overlook others. Each person will have different memories associated with the snippets that will resurface and fade away as another takes its place. There is one guarantee with a Girl Talk album however; there will be a handful of chill-inducing moments. Two songs that dance beautifully with one another and transcend the term "mash-up" altogether. Here are mine:
Foxy Brown-Hot Spot/Peter Gabriel-In Your Eyes 12:32
ODB-Shimmy Shimmy Ya/Radiohead - Creep 21:25
Paul Simon-Cecilia/Lil Jon-Get Low 27:50.
Lil Wayne-I Want It All/New Order-Bizarre Love Triangle 31:27
Twista-Wetter/U2-With Or Without You 34:00
Arcade Fire-Wake Up/Birdman-Money to Blow 51:00
Phoenix-1901/Ludacris-How Low 59:40
Rolling Stones-Paint It Black/Wiz Khalifa- Black and Yellow 1:04:39
Fine Young Cannibals-Good Thing/Gucci Mane- Gucci Time- 1:06:05
What are yours?
If you go by the track listings: Track 4, Jump on Stage.
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