'Feed the Animals' is delirious, awesome follow-up for Girl Talk

10/02/08 - These days popular music is meant to be disposable: it's rushed out to be enjoyed for a brief, shining moment and then forgotten. The sad fact is most top 40 songs last about as long in pop culture as John McCain would in a pick-up basketball game in East L.A. (about four seconds, I'd imagine . depending on the size/street cred of his opponents).

But classic, random songs (like Rick Springfield's "Jesse's Girl" or - at the other end of the spectrum - Dr. Dre's timeless "Bitches Ain't Shit") deserve to live on. Songs like that shouldn't be forgotten and abandoned, doomed to play only on weird radio stations and VH1 countdowns.

Thankfully, DJ Gregg Gillis, better known as "Girl Talk," is recycling a lot of the songs you know and love . and making them even more awesome for your listening pleasure. On his latest LP, Feed the Animals, Girl Talk takes mash-up to new heights, mixing beats and melodies with mathematical precision to create a musical mosaic perfect for the ADD set, the wildly indecisive and pretty much anyone who can appreciate Daft Punk spliced over Fleetwood Mac.

Each track on Feed the Animals is it's own pulsing universe of chords, beats, notes, and inescapable nostalgia. Gillis has a knack for blending unlikely tracks into a seamless and addictive new song.

If your iPod had a raging coke habit, it would sound kind of like this. It's dizzy, frothy, party music that jumps between decades and genres at the drop of a (fitted) hat.

GT's work is delirious, awesomely random and ultimately, satisfying in a way that listening to Roy Orbison mashed with Snoop Dogg can only be. Because in America, no one should be forced to make a choice between Busta Rhymes and The Police . especially when the option exists of listening to them both simultaneously.

What a true testament to Gillis' talent though? He can even make Avril Lavigne sound good. Though this feat had previously been thought impossible by anyone over the age of 13, Gillis' laptop wizardry knows no bounds.

Straight up, Lavigne's "Girlfriend" is probably one of the top ten most annoying songs of the millennium- but in Gillis' hands it's dance-floor ear-candy. Check GT's "Shut the Club Down" . and then cut your whiny little sister some slack. Granted, she's probably not blasting it alongside "Big Pimpin'" and "Throw Some D's" (unless she's certified gangsta), but still.

One of Girl Talk's great strengths lies in the fact that Gillis isn't afraid to experiment: GT's act is more or less musical chemistry - distilling songs down to their bridges, beats, chords and choruses, and then mixing in pieces of other tracks.

If Bill Nye the Science Guy were a DJ with a taste for trashy hip-hop, he'd probably sound a lot like Girl Talk. Come to think of it, Bill Nye is probably unemployed these days anyway, so maybe he should consider a career move.

At a time when most pop songs are throw-away tracks about being fly/sexy/ballin/ insert creative but slightly ridiculous adjective here, Girl Talk is making sure that these otherwise born-to-die tracks are preserved.

By mixing novelty acts like Soulja Boy with artists who have proved to have some staying power (Radiohead, Elton John, Nas' etc.), Gillis infuses mediocre pop (oh hey, Kelly Clarkson...) with a little clout- while, at the same time, knocking classic artists off their sky-high pedestals.

Thanks to Gillis, tracks otherwise doomed to rot in the club jam grave of grills, hoes and fat stacks, live on - at least a little longer.

If nothing else Feed the Animals - the follow-up to Girl Talk's 2006 album Night Ripper - offers a fresh take on Top 40 - and, given the questionable state of most pop music, that's much appreciated.