Artist Spotlight: Girl Talk

   Hey everyone! Friday's finally here, and I hope you're all as psyched for the weekend as I am! (if everything goes to plan, it should be an awesome time!) Being Friday, you know what that means here at SCM, another awesome Artist Spotlight!

   Today I'm going to be featuring one, Gregg Gillis, better known to the music world as Girl Talk. Now if you've been anywhere near the music scene, and especially the electronic music scene, in the past few years you may have heard of him, or some of his amazing mash-ups.
   Girl Talk has been releasing albums of mash-ups about every two years since 2002. His style could be described as a pop culture mosaic, or a top 40 collage, as he takes a dozen or more recognizable songs from all genres and musical eras, and sticks them in "the blender" to create something new and very unique. He doesn't so much create tracks as he does entire albums. The only reason any of his five albums have been split into "tracks" is for easy access to later parts of the mix. When you see what goes into making a "track" like he makes, you can hardly blame him for taking two years per album, all the while (till 07) trying to hold down a job as a biomedical engineer. Check out his process...

   Completely awesome! I first saw this video clip in the documentary "RIP: A Remix Manifesto," a documentary about copyright and intellectual property law, surrounding particularly, Girl Talk, and the Disney corporation. Incredible film! If you get a chance, it'd be well worth your time to check it out.
   As one could guess, Girl Talk is highly scrutinized for his extreme usage of samples, especially by record companies, who feel like they should be getting payed for every use, of every sample they own the rights to. No legal action has been taken against Gregg, due to his claim of usage under fair use law. And what do the artists that have been sampled generally think about Girl Talk using them in his albums? Generally speaking, they love it! Several of the artists sampled on his latest album, "All Day" put up posts on they're own websites telling people to check out the new Girl Talk album.
   Under free use, Girl Talk released his first four albums (Secret Diary, Unstoppable, Night Ripper, & Feed the Animals) through illegal-art.net, for a "pay a price you'd like." His latest release, All Day, is available on illegal art absolutely free! So go grab yourself a copy HERE <---click there

   So here's a few fan made videos to give you an idea of what Girl Talk is all about. (These are off the album Feed the Animals)

(No Pause)

(Like This)

(Give Me a Beat)

   I've been a huge Girl Talk fan for a few years now, and can't wait to see what's next. He was the driving force behind Sophmore and I coming together on the mash-ups we've been doing. I also can't wait to go check out a Girl Talk live show (I've heard they tend to turn into drunken "pants-off dance-offs"), and hopefully I can grab myself a ticket for the February 23 show at the House of Blues!
   Well I hope you've enjoyed my little spotlight on Girl Talk, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Till next week everybody...Peace.