Girl Talk, fine art, & criticism in a subjective world
Somewhat to my surprise, everyone I know has been talking about the new Girl Talk record that came out today. I listened to it first thing this morning, and have some thoughts I’d like to share.
When “Night Ripper” was released, it was a few years after the real heyday of mashups, and I initially thought it would be a silly, glib, dismissible record. I was pleasantly surprised to find two things: firstly, that Gregg Gillis has much the same taste in music that I do, and the same musical background (in interviews, he’s repeatedly cited Kid606 as a primary influence, which is the same for me, and I also spent a lot of time listening to contemporary rap radio after having grown up on classic rock and alternative rock radio). In a real way, I actually thought every time I listened that if I’d had more patience, I could probably have made that record - and I mean that not to put it down, but to say that it deeply jived with me.
The second surprise was that Night Ripper wasn’t just a collection of mashups, or even just a mashup-influenced DJ mix. It is a composition. The way the songs have been sampled and edited together reflects a different kind of craftsmanship. My first thought wasn’t of mashup DJs whose work I’ve enjoyed, but of sample artists like Negativland (who were also a primary influence on me - I don’t know if I would have started making music without hearing Negativland and Kid606). The combinations of songs were inspired, and then carefully sequenced into a greater whole.
Night Ripper is, to me, among the best arguments for sampling. The ability to take other people songs and so thoroughly recontextualize it - while still leaving it recognizable - is something that we should be seeing as art.
So the new record, All Day, comes as something of a disappointment to me. Yes, it’s a fun record, and I enjoyed listening to it well enough, but it is not without flaws. Most trivially, the song selection is often fairly dated. Consider the rap a cappellas he’s using and how old some of them are: a Ludacris song from, what, 2004? Jay-Z’s “Can I Get A…”? I’ve had a similar problem using a cappellas while DJing; there hasn’t been that much rap in the last few years that has been really remarkable (Lil Wayne is probably the only exception I can think of, and of course “A Milli” is pretty played to death at this point but still present in All Day). Which is all to say nothing of using more than one a cappella from an artist: there’s two Missy Elliott tracks in there, both of which are at least five years old.
I hesitate to say Gillis is being lazy, but much of the track selection makes this sound like someone who’s heard his work or seen him live and then gone home to put together something derivative from songs that are pretty readily available online. Heck, I’ve put M.O.P.’s “Ante Up” on top of the instrumental for “Party in the USA”, too, and I’m definitely something of a hack DJ.
But the thing that I am most disappointed with about All Day is that it doesn’t sound like an album, but rather a DJ mix. It’s a very capable mix, and there’s some things in there that you couldn’t do with just turntables and a mixer, but it lacks that compositional element that had previously impressed me about Girl Talk. I understand that you can’t really do Night-Ripper-style editing live, and this record and the last one are both very directly influenced by his live show. And I don’t mean to say that a mix is somehow less than an album necessarily, but they are different things.
When I want to show someone why sampling is a crucial art form and why transformative use matters, I turn to Negativland, Kid606, Paul’s Boutique, and probably Night Ripper. All Day is a fun listen, and doesn’t sound bad, but it’s glib - it sounds like a promotional mix for the Girl Talk live show, and it makes me think that Gillis is just hustling himself as a party DJ. Which is fine - there are plenty of party DJs who I have nothing but respect for, and who do great work in that niche - but I think he could be doing a lot more, artistically.
Finally, a semi-related note about criticism and what I’m doing here. As a general rule, I’m not interested in spending time talking about things I don’t like. I try to stay positive. I’m making a bit of an exception with this post, although I’m actually expressing concern more than dislike and using this new album to talk about what I loved about his older work.
But the things we love, or just enjoy, are always subjective, and I can’t say you’re wrong if you don’t agree with me about this or any record. A friend told me, in so many words, that my criticism of this was misplaced because it’s just intended to be a fun pop record, and if Gillis enjoys it, and the listener enjoys it, isn’t that all that matters?
Sure, I’ll say. It’s a lucky musician who can put out a record that she enjoyed making and who has an audience who enjoys hearing it. My friend is really happy with All Day, and I’m not interested in telling him how to feel. But: releasing an album to the public opens one’s art up to public scrutiny, and frankly, having fun making art does not make that art good by necessity. (Indeed, some of the worst music I’ve ever made was the most fun to make.) And I suppose I’ll grant the point that, by criticizing this record, I’m also criticizing my friend’s taste, but I think it’s important to note that we’re both looking for something different from it. I’m looking for capital-a Art; he’s looking for a good time. There’s nothing wrong with wanting base pleasure from music, and I’ve never said there was.
I’m willing to abandon ideas of objective aesthetic quality as generally baseless. The only way to maintain an objective standard is to talk about objective metrics, which rarely have anything to do with why we actually like anything. But by embracing the subjective, I feel that we all have to take things a little less personally. My opinion is only that: mine. I can try to explain why I’m not so impressed by All Day, and maybe you’ll see my points and agree with me. But if you enjoy it, I can’t stop that; I’m not trying to stop it; let’s all agree that we like what we like for reasons which are usually inexpressible.
Besides: if I wanted to really attack your taste, I would start in a dozen other places before even considering Girl Talk.