Monster mash-up

After an online imposter dropped a fake Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis) album into circulation to fool many eagerly awaiting fans, June 19 was a day of celebration. Feed The Animals, Gillis’ fourth studio album, is his latest release since 2006’s cult hit
Night Ripper, and boy, is it worth the wait.  

These past two years have seen Gillis find his own personal niche in music, especially his live performances, which he developed into an alcohol-induced orgy of nonstop, sweat-filled dancing delight. And although Girl Talk’s laptop shows border genius enough to give you the feeling that there’s no place in the world you’d rather be, only Night Ripper translated this exhilarated feeling cleanly enough to be recognizable.  

With Feed The Animals, that’s all changed.  

This album, which is available for a pay-whatever-you-want rate at illegalart.net, shows a more evolved and slightly less schizophrenic Gillis who pieces together numerous songs in a masterful Frankenstein fashion, in order to create new, dance-floor friendly mini-masterpieces with every track.

Gillis has broadened his musical inspirations with this one, delving into artists and genres that have been previously unassociated with the mash-up movement, including the iconic speed metal of Metallica, the Americana alt-country of The Band, the listener-friendly radio pop of Dexy’s Midnight Riders and the classic rock of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.    

The album’s only downfall is that some of the ADD feeling from Gillis’ previous mash-ups is still lurking in the background somewhere. At times, Gillis gives listeners just a taste of something great, like Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose” mixed with Fergie’s “London Bridge” and Gorilla Zoe’s “Hood Nigga,” and then quickly moves on to something different before the effect of the mash-up is able to sink in.

Despite this, Gillis is still able to make the songs seem whole. Even though the album is more intricately layered than any of his previous works, Gillis tries his best to remove the feeling of ADD that you get from Night Ripper and replaces it with one that reminds us that these songs, though they are mash-ups of many different legendary tracks, are more than able to standout as individual art on their own.