tuneage : everyone deserves good music

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The Bran Flakes - “I Have A Friend”

Girl Talk is certainly in a league of his own but for some reason I tend to think of him as in a genre by himself too, which isn’t the case— there are many a takers in the sampling game. When I first read the release that landed in my inbox saying that The Bran Flakes are releasing their 100% sample-based album I Have Hands on the same label (Illegal Art) as Girl Talk, I readied myself to be disappointed holding them up to the pure gold of gold standards. Turns out my judgment was premature. Far from Girl Talk’s woven masterpiece of best of dance jams, The Bran Flakes have a completely different sound: a sort of retro du wop conversation. I Have Hands is out February 24th and judging from the pre-released tracks it’s something to look forward to.

Girl Talk's Feed The Animals: Get It

If you’ve been waiting for Girl Talk’s new album for as long as we have, you’ll be happy to hear that the most anticipated album in Illegal Art’s history is now available. It was revealed a while ago that he’d be adopting the pay-what-you-want model that Radiohead made popular, so go forth and pay what you want.

You’ll find it here, where it is also noted that any price will secure you 320kbps MP3s, $5 or more gives you the option of FLAC files and a one-file mix of the album, and paying more than $10 will get you a packaged CD when it becomes available.

Interestingly, if you choose to pay nothing for it, you are forwarded to a poll where you are asked for an excuse for paying nothing. I picked “part of the press”. I hope your excuse is better.

A fairly comprehensive list of the source material used is already available on the album’s Wikipedia page. As you’d expect, there’s a lot of it.

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Girl Talk - Minute by Minute

Continuing the mashup theme from yesterday’s post on the Kleptones, here’s Girl Talk. Probably better known than The Kleptones (outside the UK, at least, where they come from), and very well known for his live shows, which frequently end up with half the audience in attendance on stage dancing along in various stages of undress. I haven’t had the pleasure myself, but I hear it’s a hell of a live show.

Anyway, Girl Talk is the stage name of Greg Gillis, who hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He makes his music almost completely by mixing samples from other artists’ songs, running the complete gamut of genres — from Black Eyed Peas and 50 Cent, up to Jefferson Airplane, The Pixies, and Britney Spears. In the liner notes for the album this track comes from, Night Ripper, he thanks over 100 artists (most of which haven’t actually give him permission to use their music).

It’s pretty hard to pick out one track from the album, since they all blend in to each other, but this one stands out pretty well on its own. You can try and spot all the samples used — which range from LL Cool J to Neutral Milk Hotel, and Juelz Santana to Steely Dan — but with at least 14 of them, I bid you good luck. (When you give up, here’s a list of them.)