why girl talk (especially feed the animals) matters more than your favorite band (or favorite album)

I'm trying to blog while I update Facebook, listen to my iPod ("Smash Your Head" by Girl Talk, unsurprisingly), and monitor work email. I also have a meeting in 20 minutes. Make that 16.

I've had a lot of sugar today. A lot. It's treat day. Red velvet cake, cookies, puppy dog tails. Coffee as well. Dark roast.

Oh, and a cheeseburger and fries for lunch. Probably should have had chicken nuggets.

This is the magic of Girl Talk represented by my day (Happy 200th BDay Messrs Lincoln and Darwin, as well as happy 29th, Ms Ricci).

You see, Lincoln and Darwin could have never had a day like the day I'm having. Sugar was expensive back in 1809. Wasn't it? Better check Wikipedia.

Anyway.

Girl Talk is the most modern of music. Postmodern, actually. You know Girl Talk, right? He's the Michelangelo of mash-ups. Perhaps prior to his creation of the aforementioned "Smash Your Head", specifically minute one, second thirty-six of the fifth track on Night Ripper, Greg Gillis (Mr Girl Talk himself) was just another laptop-wielding cube jockey who treated pop music like a chemistry set. But at 1:36, everything changed. Yes, at 1:36 of the best Girl Talk track (11:40 of the album as a whole), The Notorious B.I.G. makes an appearance.

Take the best Biggie verse and drop it on top of a sped-up section of Elton John's finest, and you get modern pop music's Creation of Adam.

What's important about this particular moment in "Smash Your Head" is that unlike, say, the opening of the song, which featured X-Ray Spex, or "Minute by Minute", which sampled Neutral Milk Hotel, or even the KRS-One rip in "Too Deep", Gillis took the absolute high points of two genre classics and let them rip for not quite a minute. Sublime. Pop. Genius.

Feed the Animals (number one on my Top 10 of 2008) is Gillis' attempt to replicate the glory of Biggie riding Sir Elton. On every song. For nearly an hour. He never quite makes it, but the overall effect blows away Night Ripper.

And what's important about this aspect of Feed the Animals is why Girl Talk matters more than your favorite band. As my friend Jeff Kamin said once, "Sometimes I get goosebumps from a song. I call these chill songs because a chorus or verse or bridge can give me the chills." That's what Gillis is trying (and mostly succeeding) to accomplish throughout Feed the Animals.

Every track is like the bit of a song that Toyota or Target or Apple uses in an ad campaign. It's the hook. It's the selling point. It's the reason you love that song. We live in a society that values advertisements as entertainment, so why not string as many of these together as possible? Feed the Animals is 53 minutes, 53 seconds of treat days.

We also live at a time when many of the things we crave and consume subscribe to the concepts posed in Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation. Chicken nuggets. Reality television. Girl Talk. How much more third-order simulacra can you get than a song made entirely of recycled bits of other songs, some of which themselves sample other compositions? There is no original Girl Talk song. And even the basic formula Gillis follows for Feed the Animals is a copy of one of his previous works, which itself is not original.

Of course, while we're enjoying those fine fried bits of processed chicken, we might be driving, chatting with our passenger and texting (or blogging, eating, working and Facebooking). This is the hypertasking instant-gratification generation. And Girl Talk is its soundtrack. Don't like the first lines of "Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You)" (but how could you not)? Not to worry, Birdman and Lil Wayne will be here before you know it.

Oh did I mention that Gillis gets all his samples illegally? But such is the nature of the modern media consumer. We download things from the Internet, pick and choose and delete rather than dropping $15 on piece of plastic on the chance that more than one song is any good.

An album by Isis or Radiohead or even Grammy-dominating Robert Plant and Allison Krauss can never come as close to representing the modern music listener as does Girl Talk. Raising Sand, Krauss and Plant's Album of the Year-winning collaboration, is actually pretty much as far from Girl Talk as is possible. No surprise, coming from the aging Academy.

So, Girl Talk's Feed the Animals: the defining music of the Hypertasking Instant Gratification Generation.

And it makes for a pretty damn good dance party.

los diez mejores de 2008

10. O, Tilly & the Wall
I love tap dancing. Throw lots of gorgeous girl-girl harmonies, mid-80s pop melodies and fat synths on top of Jamie Pressnall's wicked feet, and you've got 11 awesome tracks. If only "Beat Control" had made it onto the U.S. release.


9. Saturdays=Youth, M83
Anthony Gonzalez and co.'s latest offering smacks of the Cocteau Twins, Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. They probably could have put "Kim & Jessie" on a 12-inch half a dozen times and I'd have been happy. Saturdays=Youth is huge, darkly hopeful and fuzzy. And it makes me feel like wearing nothing but black and a smile. All good things.


8. Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst
This is not a Bright Eyes album, and Mr Oberst went all the way to Mexico to prove it to you. Instead, the former wunderkind/next Dylan/reviled emo poster boy embraces twang and taps a pre-CMT inspiration that's not quite alt-country. And it works. Bright Eyes' last record, Cassadaga, floundered under poor production and a lyrical thread that felt forced. Not so with this self-titled release, which finds Oberst escaping... from what, I'm not entirely sure. Regardless, I appreciate the sentiment.


7. Sun Giant EP/Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
Uplifting and radiant and perfect for Monday morning. Or any morning, really.


6. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
Yes, they might be the Whitest Band and the object of backlash for their look and sudden success. And yes, they sound exactly like Graceland-era Paul Simon. But what's wrong with that? I say the world needs more bands that could call you Al.


5. Hold On Now, Youngster..., Los Campesinos!
OK, tiny confession: Although "Death to Los Campesinos!" was the first song that really hooked me off this record, it was a mind-blowing mash-up by The Hood Internet that sold me on this band. See, Usher can do beautiful things. Without him, I'd have never fallen in love with the unabashed joy of "My Year in Lists," "We Are All Accelerated Readers" and "You! Me! Dancing!" Thank you, Usher. Thank you.


4. The Silver City, Jeremy Messersmith
Think Elliott Smith without the drugs fronting Fountains of Wayne without "Stacy's Mom." High praise, I know. But Messersmith's songwriting and voice, equal parts ache and hope, deserve it. Genius production from Dan Wilson (Semisonic) helps too.


3. Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne
iTunes tells me I listened to "Got Money" 77 times in the past six months. And that's not even one of the good songs. Tha Carter III sprawls, showcasing Dwayne Carter's lack of restraint. This would be a bad thing were it not for the truth to his claim: "They don't make em like me no more/ Matter of fact, they never made it like me before/ I'm rare like Mr. Clean with hair/ No brake lights on my car-rare." Best Rapper Alive, indeed.


2. 808s and Heartbreak, Kanye West
Sometimes I think 808s and Heartbreak is the finest Phil Collins record ever made by a rapper, and sometimes I think Kanye was just trying to murder Auto-Tune. Regardless, this album might be the best thing he's ever made. It's not a hip-hop album, it's not a rock album, it's not a pop album. No, 808s and Heartbreak is the self-portrait of an artist falling apart, nearly perfect in its imperfection. ART WINS!!!!!! ART WINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ART WINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BUT SERIOUSLY, THE DRUMS ON HEARTLESS ARE DOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


1. Feed the Animals, Girl Talk
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wrote none of the music and probably stole it all from the Internet. I don't care. This is not a party album; this is the party album, a sonic distillation of a multitasking, instant-gratification generation with a collective short attention span. Somehow, in trying and failing for 53 minutes to top "Juicy" riding "Tiny Dancer", Gregg Gillis constructed an entire album whose sum is better than his single greatest moment. Andre3000 rapping over Journey ain't bad, either.