Pop enthusiast/mash-up master
Gregg Gillis fine-tunes his approach for
All Day, a mix that took over two and a half years to craft. Each outing in
Girl Talk's discography has followed a steady succession, starting with
Secret Diary's microscopic, glitch-based work and becoming progressively less fractured with every release. Following suit,
All Day is
Gillis' straightest work to date. After the success of
Night Ripper and his masterpiece
Feed the Animals, steady club touring helped him exercise his lap-top chops, and now -- armed with greater software know-how and a precisely organized hard drive of successfully road-tested MP3s -- his fifth album has fewer moments that feel random or forced. Here,
Gillis makes blending gangsta rap and classic pop feel easy. Because
All Day isn't as dense or frenetic as
Feed the Animals, it plays a little more like a party album than a game of Name That Tune for music buffs. Still, it is absolutely jam-packed. With 373 samples in 71 minutes, the songs are so cleverly and seamlessly collaged together that things become practically comical:
Ludacris'
"How Low" over
Phoenix's
"1901," Crooked I's
"Everything" over
Neil Diamond's
"Cherry Cherry," Ice Cube's
"It Was a Good Day" over
Devo's
"Gates of Steel," and
Lil Wayne's
"A Milli" over
Joe Jackson's
"Steppin' Out" are just a smattering of artists featured in the first few minutes of a single track.
All Day is too playful to be considered mature, but for the first time it feels like a consistent album and there are definite signs of
Girl Talk maturing as an artist. Above all, it's a whole lot of fun. ~ Jason Lymangrover
