Girl Talk

No not the vaginal thrush advertisements on television and most certainly not the Sex & the City type either. Of course anyone worth their salt in blog-land who hears the name Girl Talk would immediately think of the chaotic masterpieces made by Pittsburgh's Gregg Gillis.

Now anyone who is looking for some wanky analysis of Girl Talk stop reading and click here.

Instead I have quite a different take on Girl Talk and no it doesn't involve applauding him as some post modernist revolutionary. I think Gillis' accolades as a pioneer of something bigger than himself is mostly unintentional on his part and is more so a repercussion of caffeine overdosed bloggerati who wish life held a more meaningful reason to turn on the laptop.

If you ask me, Gillis is nothing more and nothing less than a very good tastemaker who has taken himself on an extensive expedition through pop culture with the result being yet another record full on nostalgia from an astute musical palate.

On Girl Talk's latest production Feed the Animals, Gillis does nothing different to his earlier works and in this blogger's opinion, at times falls short of rasing the bar that his previous installment Night Ripper sets. Don't mistake my criticism for dislike but I think Girl Talk has some old tricks he uses time and time again. Feed the Animals as with much of Girl Talk's work combines a variety of spitting raps over our favourite classics to show seamlessly these supposedly contrasting styles mould together but then if the scent runs dry, insert a recognisable hook (e.g Lenny Kravitz guitar lick) to break up the song and then build off something new.

Of course while it all seems so elementary none have been able to compete with Girl Talk's refined selection of music and I would not deny Gillis the title of an innovator but as I said I'd fall short of calling him a genius as he does trade heavily off using rap and hip hop vocals against a lot of white people 80's cheese for shock value. But whatever you do, don't you dare utter the words Girl Talk and megamix in the same sentence, Girl Talk is about originality cultivated from harmonic fusion.

It may appear like I'm being quite harsh and let me say without question Feed the Animals is a fantastic release filled to the brim with an accessible sampling of music everyone can tap into. Gillis does indeed do a first class job of demonstrating the true universality of all music but really to any true tastemaker of music, he isn't telling us something we didn't already know. I think Girl Talk's message (if any) is that there is no point to some music, it is just devilishly good fun, end of story.

Download: Girl Talk - Feed the Animals (Full Album)

Myspace: Girl Talk