music
July 16, 2010
Girl Talk
You have to admire artists that can bring the heat on a studio album AND get a crowd rocking like it’s business as usual. Pittsburgh artist Gregg Gillis, better known by his stage name Girl Talk, does both effortlessly.
Girl Talk is known for his mashup style where he takes a dozen or more tracks and sound clips and merges them together into one track. Over the years his style and music has stirred up a lot of controversy and debate about the difference between borrowing and altering copyrighted material to make it a completely unique piece, and stealing copyrighted tracks. The New York Times has claimed his music is a “lawsuit waiting to happen.” The excerpt below from the “Good Copy / Bad Copy” documentary is pretty interesting and shows a little bit of his controversial process.
Girl Talk has mostly been known in the underground scene until he dropped “Night Ripper” in 2006 and started getting a lot of mainstream exposure. In a not-typical record release, Girl Talk actually released Night Ripper by letting customers choose what price they were willing to pay for the album and then downloading it. He now releases all of his albums this way including the release of “Feed the Animals” in 2008. (which had over 300 songs in a total of 50 minutes)
While his tracks are rad by themselves, the best way to get the full experience is to hit a live show. Because of all the audience involvement, his shows feel more like a raging party than a concert. The stages are usually packed with people, there are toilet paper guns, giant balloons full of confetti, mosh pits and plenty of crowd surfing crowd rafting.
Check some of his tracks on his Myspace and see what all the hype is about. Also, don’t forget to check the photos from his latest Salt Lake City Concert on our company blog.