I was originally going to write this post about why Girl Talk – aka Gregg Michael Gillis – is a terrible musician. His tracks are rife with short sound clips and fast cuts, which leave listeners in a dizzying fury; his songs are no more than compilations of several, thirty-second mashups. Although some of his mixes are subpar, a bunch of them (like “Hunger Strike,” Temple of the Dog with Ludacris “What’s Your Fantasy”), however, are really, really good – only problem is their length. Listening to one too many of these A.D.D. fueled compilations may leave you with a desire to find Gillis and force-feed him a bottle of Adderall.
Some of the mixes are an obvious attempt to appeal to the “the masses” – they feature only the “hottest” pop stars in order to elicit the “oh my god I’ve heard that before” reaction (Three 6’s “I’d Rather” and Springfield’s “Jesse’s girl”, for example). This was obviously a great way to elicit popularity, as I can’t think of any other reason he is renowned. Message to Gillis: you can’t just put shit together in musical time and expect it to be cohesive. It doesn’t work like that.
After doing a bit of research on the man himself I did gain some degree of respect for his music. In response to The New York Times Magazine’s comment that he is a “lawsuit waiting to happen” (nytimes.com), among other warnings, Gillis cites that his work is legal under the United States Fair Use statute. U.S. Fair Use declares the sampling of works as legal as long as the portion of the work is insignificant in comparison to the original (copyright.gov).
Ah, now it makes sense. Gillis makes capricious tracks in order to avoid getting tangled up in copyright laws. It also explains why he is supposedly so much better live: he can use as much or as little of the tracks as he wants. This doesn’t justify the crappy mashups, however, but makes some of his tracks much more legitimate. My verdict is in: Girl Talk still sucks, but not as much as I thought.
School Me
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