Back on May 22, 2009 The Pseudonym wrote a post describing Girl Talk’s songs as “no more than compilations of several, thirty-second mashups” that often leave the audience “in a dizzying fury.” Saying that some of Girl Talk’s mixes are subpar while some are really good. And honestly I agree completely: alot of his mixes make you want to fast forward because your stomach begins to turn at the sad attempt at juxtaposing two songs that should never be mentioned in the same sentence, let alone the same song. But sometimes there is a musical magic that happens where the lyrics from a Lil’ Wayne song procreates with 80′s synth-pop and creates the beautiful baby by the name of Mashup.
I respect Girl Talk as a musical creator because I know he spends hours on end searching for songs, and yet even more rearranging notes and beats and then has to beat match to lyrics. But what I respect him most for is waging war against the copyright laws (and the corporations that payed for them) that disallow people to use copy-written material in a new creation unless they pay for it. Civilization itself is based on the art, language, music and culture of those that came before us. However in the 20th century we developed the concept that ideas (and even lifeforms) can be bought and sold like a commodity. This puts a (slight) damper on being truly creative: no one can create something knew without using the knowledge of the past.
I also respect him for making the mashup famous, and opening people’s eyes to the plethora of uses of music. However his new album All Day is frankly not as good as his last. Maybe it was all the pressure of copyright laws and potential lawsuits; or maybe it is the fact that there are a lot more artists now who remix better mashups less ridden with A.D.D. That being said there are some good spots but I am not as impressed with them as I was with Night Ripper. Below you can find a documentary that more delves more deeply into copyrights laws and features remix artists of all sorts, focusing on Girl Talk. It’s very interesting and I found it gave me a lot more respect for artists like Andy Warhol and Girl Talk who borrow from others to create something unique.
You can download the whole thing here. Or just download it from youtube like everyone else did
