Girl Talk

Have you ever had one of those times where you just want to listen to high-energy, fun dance music? Girl Talk is that…on speed. Girl Talk is an incredibly talented mash-up remix DJ who layers samples from the best Top 40 songs, oldies, classics, indie, and rock music together to create a musaic masterpiece. In a single song you’ll hear the Five Stairsteps, Eminem, Ciara, the Verve (Bittersweet Symphony), the Pixies, Ying Yang Twins, Elton John (Tiny Dancer), Relient K, and more. What’s more, he blends separate tracks together so that the album, played beginning to end, sounds like a single continuous song.



Here’s one of my favorite songs: “Hold Up”, which contains a clip from that fantastic Pixes song “Where Is My Mind” from the Fight Club soundtrack.







A little background on Girl Talk: his real name is Greg Gillis. 26 years old, graduated from Case Western Reserve University and by day a biomedical research engineer. He signed with Illegal Art, an anti-copyright sampling label, in 2002 and has since created three albums: Secret Diary (2002), Unstoppable (2004), and Night Ripper (2006). The first two albums were more self-exploratory works…Secret Diary used complex structuring but with lesser-known music that didn’t have a really cohesive flow to it, and Unstoppable had all the public appeal of recognizable popular music without as much mixing and structuring. Night Ripper contains both elements: complex structure and popular music, and is widely considered Girl Talk’s masterpiece. It was through this album that he jumped to stardom in 2006.



Here’s another fantastic song, “Once Again”, which contains samples from “Bittersweet Symphony” and “Wonderwall”.







I loved listening to this music for the first time because you never know what sample from one of your favorite songs is going to pop up next. One second you’re jamming to T.I. and then here comes Gwen Stefani and the Smashing Pumpkins. I’ve also heard that his live shows are incredible….the crowd is allowed on stage to gather around the DJ and mosh, crowd surf, and generally just scream, sweat, and spill beer all over him while he hunches over his laptop. Usually he performs some sort of striptease exhibition during the show as well and ends up mostly or completely naked. It’s like a rave, but with all familiar classic dance music. So the next time you throw a party and need a soundtrack…pick Night Ripper.