#3 - Girl Talk - All Day

For information on my writing style and how this blog will work from here on out, please read the post directly below this one. Thank you.

It’s no secret that the way we consume music has changed drastically in the last ten years. The Internet has had a hand in it to be sure, not to mention the continued blandness of commercial radio and MTV slowly turning into a cesspool of reality television. These and other business-side reasons have contributed to the diverging of people’s listening habits: there simply aren’t any truly big musical acts around anymore (that are relevant, anyway) along the lines of The Beatles or Elvis, or even Michael Jackson or Madonna. Don’t get me wrong; I know there are plenty of people who have eclectic tastes in music. There just aren’t any artists that unite music fans the way those artists I just named did.

Enter Gregg Gillis, a.k.a Girl Talk. He is a mash-up artist extraordinaire, and his latest album All Day -- despite mash-up music being a relatively new thing -- is a sort throwback to the days when MTV still played music (and not just heavily-edited videos on TRL).

But I’ll get to that in a bit.

(Yes, I’m going into self-indulgent mode here.)

In my senior year of high school, 1999, I was heavily into the modern rock scene. I willingly bought albums by Creed. Korn and Limp Bizkit and Godsmack blasted from my stereo. This is not all I listened to by any means, but that was modern commercial music at the time, therefore that’s what I was into. Then I moved away to college and met guys on my floor who liked Weezer and Alkaline Trio. I worked at the campus radio station and was introduced to indie rock. I read rock criticism voraciously and probably learned more about (and was more interested in) the past than I ever was in the present. Downloading music -- both legal and illegal -- made this a hell of a lot easier than it was in 1999. Getting a full-time job after college helped me satisfy my curiosities even further without being an outright thief. I’m as modern a music consumer as they come now, albeit with a penchant for physical media.

With that in mind, hearing an album like All Day is quite interesting to me. It offers a little bit of something for everyone, whether it be pop, R&B, classic rock, modern rock, punk rock, indie rock, or hip hop.

The best short description I can come up with for the album is that it is dance music for the ADD generation. Instead of a track with maybe two or three songs, the entire 71-minute running time is filled with one set of mash-ups after another, sometimes with layers four or five songs deep. Transitions from one to the next are pretty seamless, which it pretty much has to be as the intention of the album is for it to be listened to all at once.

The vocal parts skew hip hop and R&B heavy, and for someone who doesn’t listen to that kind of music that should be an immediate turn-off. Except that it wasn’t. So often I found myself thinking “Did I just rock out to a Rihanna or Beyonce song?” or “Who the fuck is Gucci Mane and why is it so catchy?” Sure, it helped that Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” was backed up by Fugazi’s “Waiting Room,” but “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) was backed up by something called M.O.P. Still, that combination of songs was pure exhilaration.

90’s alt-rock and hip hop (Skee-Lo!) is also featured heavily on the album. As someone who got into music at that time, I always got a kick when “Possum Kingdom” or “Closer” or “Thunderkiss ‘65” came on.

Part of the fun was discovering things you haven’t heard before, or at least are hearing in a new way. The second track, “Let it Out,” has a section that features ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” with “Twerk” by Project Pat. I’ve never heard either of those songs before -- what can I say, my parents stopped listening to music in 1970, and none of my friends are into classic rock -- yet they worked so well together. And it led me to getting “Mr. Blue Sky” on iTunes. The album is full of moments just like that one, so many in fact that I don’t want to name them all here.

But here are a few:

Gillis kicks the whole thing off with a bang by matching “War Pigs” with “Move Bitch” by Ludacris. A few tracks later the riff from Radiohead’s “Creep” kicks in while Ol’ Dirty Bastard warbles some “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” -- the combination of “But I’m a creep” with “Oh baby I love it raw” is particularly inspired. Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” works wonderfully with the Beastie Boys’ “Hey Ladies.”

Of course, what I love most about All Day is also kind of its weakness. Too often I found myself waiting for the parts I liked and ignoring the ones I didn’t. On that level, the album isn’t greater than the sum of its parts; the parts are what I remember most. Then again, All Day isn’t intended to be listened to repeatedly on headphones; it’s supposed to be a sort of instant dance party. On that level, it does succeed. In fact it succeeds so much I wish this sort of music existed when I was in college and going out to the bars. Think about it: instead of struggling to like the latest rap single, my theoretical partner could move to the drumbeat from Outkast’s “B.O.B” (or even better, the absolutely filthy “Room Service” by Pitbull) while I rocked the fuck out to the guitar riff from Nirvana’s “Aneurysm.” It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

Ultimately All Day is a one-stop shop for the past 40 or so years of popular music. It pulls off the rare feat -- at least for today -- of bringing all kinds of music fans together for what Pitchfork rightfully calls “a communal listening experience.” If you can’t find something you like on the album, you’re not listening closely enough. Or you hate mash-ups or rap music or both. In which case you just wasted precious minutes reading something you already knew you hated. Good job.

Rating: 3 Mashed Potatoes

To download the album (free and legal!) go here.
To listen to separate and notated tracks (and some cool video mash-ups) go here.