Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

I was finally able to track down a copy of All Day late last night (the day of it's free release), but in honour of Gregg Gillis' new album, I thought it was only fitting to review Girl Talk's previous album today.

Less of an album, meaning a collection of songs put together one heading, as it is a 53 minute experience; an on-going mash-up of song snippets that have been masterfully put together into something new. Similar in style to The Avalanches' album, Since I Left You, but somehow different... and no, I can't put my finger on how or why (although I don't believe that either artist got the rights to all of the samples used on their albums). Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Feed the Animals, you can see that we're not talking about 'a few samples' that have been mashed together. We're talking about hundreds, from all eras and genres.

I have no idea how someone would go about putting something like this together, or how it would ever occur to someone that having Busta Rhymes rap over top of the groove from Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight would be great. But it is, and Gillis was the one with the vision to make this happen. It could be that, on the first few listens, it was just the idea of putting something together like this that kept me coming back, but I've heard this album countless times now and it still gets me going. There aren't any choruses, verses, bridges, etc., here, it's just a single stream of music that has been cut into 'tracks' for ease of access more than anything else.

Sure, some of it is a little crass lyrically in places, but I don't normally listen to a lot of the rap artists that are sampled here, so maybe that's my bias. Otherwise, the fun of identifying songs or artists is still there for me, the energy is still super-high on this album, and it's just a great album to drive to or have on in the background.

Recommended track(s):	Shut the Club Down; What It's All About; Hands in the Air
Worth another listen?	Yes!
Overall rating:	Four Stars