Tunes review: Girl Talk – All Day

Rebecca Spence, Arts Editor

Last Monday morning I got lucky on Twitter. A pair of tweets from @therealgirltalk read: “Anyone want to hear my album right now?” and then “My new album is called All Day. I’ve been working on it for more than 2.5 years. I’m releasing it within the hour for free.”

After 72 minutes of straight dance, pop, and electronic craziness, I started playing All Day all over again. The album is like a party playlist that’s already been made for you: 12 tracks that aren’t meant to be played as separate songs, but continuously. That’s the genius of it. You don’t know where the song ends or begins. Gregg Gillis, the DJ behind Girl Talk, exhibits a real subtlety of transition making the mix fluid and not choppy or littered with blanks. All Day flows beautifully.

There is also a great variety of sounds throughout the album. You get Beyonce, Ween, Gaga, Beastie Boys, Gucci Mane, Arcade Fire, Devo, Uffie, and 365 others. Cali Swag District wants to learn how to “Dougie.” Rihanna calls you a rude boy. Skee-Lo wishes he was a little bit taller. Gillis remixes all the fine parts of the best songs and mashes them together. No song or genre is off limits. If it sounds good, he‘ll mix it up.

Gillis’s fifth album follows the success of Feed the Animals, which was named No. 4 on Time’s “Top 10 Albums of 2008” list. Feed the Animals showcased Gillis’s greatest talent as his uncanny ability to splice together disparate elements in a manner that made them not only interesting, but pointedly fun-loving. Or in even greater moments, when humour took a backseat, he’d create truly transcendent moments in his mixtures, making them seem wholly natural and almost inevitable, like two friends you’re sure would love each other but whom you haven’t yet been able to bring together in a room: B.I.G. and Elton John; Trina and Fleetwood Mac; Kanye and Blackstreet.

On All Day we get plenty of obligatory recent pop smashes. Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and Ke$ha are all here. Gillis also taps into the indie sphere a bit more heavily than he did on Feed the Animals, hitting up MGMT, Phoenix, Arcade Fire, and The Rapture. Most of these are paired with adequately filthy hip-hop.

Gillis has a great knack for pairing tunes together, but it’s almost become too obvious of a formula: find either a contemporary pop song or a classic rock song to provide a backing instrumental track, add a verse or two of hip-hop, and serve. Don’t get me wrong: the final product is still fun and fresh, but Gillis’s more adventurous customers may want a taste of something that’s a little more daring.