Feed the Animals

Much music journalism ado has been made over the three hundred samples Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis) used on his latest mash-up album, Feed the Animals. All unlicensed, Gillis walks a fine copyright law that has done him well thus far. Originally an underground live hit, a combination of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" with The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Juicy" on 2006's Night Ripper made the blog rounds and built hype for the laptop DJ's next effort.

Gillis certainly delivers, in exactly the same way he did on Night Ripper. When he crams unexpected songs together, Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop" lyrics make perfect sense over the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge" guitar line in "Play Your Part (Pt. 2)." When he alternates Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" with Nine Inch Nails' "Wish" in "Here's the Thing," it only adds to the intensity of both. Though the tracks jump around at ADD-speed, the beats and overlaps tie it all together. With some samples as short as a second or two, finding a list of all the tracks he used (there's one on Wikipedia) makes the experience even more rewarding.

If he has a formula ? hip-hop lyrics, some only a few weeks old, over classic rock instrumentals ? Gillis has perfected it. These mash-ups have more than just novelty appeal; they actually work. I doubt either Elvis Costello or Shawty Lo would have guessed how well their songs complement each other.

However, as song blends into song, album blends into album, one begins to wish he mixed in a few different styles of music. How would flamenco work with Jay-Z? What about some real reggae behind Busta Rhymes instead of just The Police? His two genres of choice occasionally just don't gel; he often has to speed up the classic rock samples to match the rap, making The Band sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. On the rare occasions where it seems like he's forcing it, you wonder if Gillis broadened his listening horizons, if he couldn't discover more natural combinations.

Music made for the skip-friendly attention span of the iPod generation, these samples never look back to provide a repeating chorus or hook. Gillis has said the album is meant to be listened to as one long piece, even offering Web site visitors the option of downloading it as one long mp3, but it could just as easily be divided up a hundred times or more. The current track breaks seem completely arbitrary, as do the separations between one album and the next, for that matter. Though having him pull back on the number of samples would be foolish, a little more coherence and patience could tie the works together.

Having perfected the art of the mash-up, Gillis's keen ear shows that creating something new takes more talent than just slamming together "Toxic" and "Umbrella" on Garageband. He's proved his point by now though, and to maintain interest, he's going to have to find a new trick or two.