The simplest way to a successful and rewarding career: Find something you love doing, then get paid to do it. This is why people talk about Gregg Gillis with a tinge of envy; as Pitchfork’s Ryan Dombal has said, Gillis has figured out exactly what he was put on this earth to do–transforming five decades of pop music into seamless, well-paced mixes, and then, live, turning those mixes into a sweaty, tribal celebration of pop music itself. But while 2008’s Feed the Animals proved his staying power and solidified his aesthetic, there was a creeping worry that as long as Gillis stuck with this maximalist mashup thing, we’d be stuck having the same arguments for and against him over and over again. So, the question with his fifth album,All Day: In 2010, is a newly minted Girl Talk fan someone who just simply hasn’t heard of him before? Or is Gillis capable of converting those still on the fence?
If there are still holdouts, the arguments against Girl Talk are getting slimmer.All Day is a reminder that, despite the number of party DJs and bedroom mashup artists, nobody does it better than Gillis; here he makes the strongest argument yet for himself as a master of his craft. Initially, Gillis comes off like he’s baiting his detractors: his “legitimacy” as a DJ has been brought into question on account of having the cleanest hands of any cratedigger, but Gillis goes even more mainstream with his source material (we’re talking John Lennon, the Rolling Stones, the Jackson 5…). Compared to All Day, Girl Talk’s calling-card LPNight Ripper might as well beEndtroducing… And even those who’ve enjoyed his work will admit that it’s a hell of a lot to take for extended periods of time, yet All Day clocks in at a titanic 71 minutes, almost 20 minutes longer than Animals.
Against those odds, Gillis turns these perceived weaknesses into strengths; as his most fussed-over and carefully plotted album, All Day paradoxically sounds like his most effortless. He’s still operating within a “if it’s not fun, why do it?” ethos, but fortunately, it doesn’t have the same relentless pacing of his prior work, offering a couple of cooldown moments to collect yourself before spazzing out again (the most notable is the “Imagine”/ “One Day” comedown that closes out All Day). Which is crucial, since All Day is meant to be listened to as a whole. (Gillis admits that the seemingly arbitrary track breakdown is solely for ease of navigation.)
But if I need a five-minute fix, “Get It Get It” is the best illustration of how the roomier confines of these songs allow the samples to breathe, evolve, and take on a life of their own without wearing out their welcome. Scoff at the supposed “wackiness” of matching “Pretty Boy Swag” with “Windowlicker” and you’ll miss what is arguably Gillis’ most inspired musical arrangement. It’s not great because of novelty, it’s great because it totally makes sense– it’s almost eerie how perfectly Soulja Boy’s halting cadences match Aphex Twin’s fidgety programming, amplifying the implicit weirdness of the former and the skewed pop instincts of the latter. If M.I.A. realized that agit-pop is greatly enhanced with kickass guitar riffs, she might realize how perfectly tailored Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” is for her protégé Rye Rye. Later in the track, Gillis pairs up the hyper machismo of Pitbull’s “Hotel Room Service” with Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” as a musical illustration of Girl Talk’s general outlook, a unity borne of the search for hedonistic pleasure.
Befitting the party-starting functionality of All Day, it doesn’t ever go into the chin-stroking appeal of obvious precedent Plunderphonics, and the samples aren’t given new contexts so much as new purposes. It’s pretty much impossible for “Sunshine of Your Love” to sound new, but it’s a blast to drop the flower-power lyrics and have Biggie’s “Nasty Boy” bring out the lurid appeal of the riffs (lolz at Eric Clapton’s soloing beginning with the line “then I whipped it out”). And of course, there’s the Easter eggs, the knowing winks and the in-jokes– an instantly recognizable clip from “One More Time” sneaks in for a split second, but Daft Punk lay low for a minute or two before resurfacing for “Digital Love”. Or chopping up Big Boi’s “Shutterbug” to stress the line “I’m double-fisting/ If you’re empty you can grab a cup.” Personally, I think the funniest moment is intentionally using the commonly misheard chorus of “1901” (it’s not “falling,” people!) as a punctuation to Ludacris saying “how low can you go?” And the instrumental from “Mr. Big Stuff” allows the listener to clown Wale’s noxious “Pretty Girls” hook without saying a word.
Yes, the headslap moments aren’t completely eliminated, just far less frequent (“Jane Says”/”Teach Me How to Dougie” sticks out the most), but even the perceived “mistakes” have a plan– at first, the indelible drum sound from “Idioteque” sounds horribly beatmatched with the Isley Brothers’ “Shout”, but that’s just the second-long windup before hurtling into a crazed strip-club banger. And while some might see the use of the piano coda from “Layla” backing B.o.B.’s “Haterz Everywhere” as sacrilege, the two achieve a bizarre, complex harmony with each other. As far as what the use of Fugazi’s “Waiting Room” as the foundation for a “Rude Boy” mashup is supposed to “mean”? I’ll allow that Gillis is fucking with us sometimes.
When Girl Talk broke through in 2006 with Night Ripper, the album was often credited for reflecting the new listening habits afforded by the Internet, where long-held grudges were dropped and pop, indie rock, classic AOR, and mainstream rap were on equal playing fields. If only that were true; it’s easier than ever to wall yourself off from music you dismiss on principle alone, and if we’re living in a time when Arcade Fire fans don’t want to have their sincerity questioned when they ride for the cause of Waka Flocka Flame or Birdman (“Wake Up” bridges the gap here between “Hard in Da Paint” and “Money to Blow”), I must’ve missed it.
What All Day and Girl Talk himself are nostalgic for is not a specific sound or even a specific period of time, even though Gillis’ sweet spot is alt-rock and pop-rap from the 90s. It’s not “hey, remember ‘Thunder Kiss ’65′” or, “whoa, what happened to Skee-Lo,” but rather nostalgia for a time when MTV and radio were the primary methods of conveyance. They weren’t perfect, but there was a certain thrill to being something of a captive audience, of letting yourself go and being impressionable for just once, finding out that “Possum Kingdom” was pretty rad while waiting for a new Beck single, that both “Flava in Ya Ear” and “Liquid Swords” were great in their own way and that your parents liked some cool shit after all once you discovered the classic rock station. It’s fitting that Gillis went old-school and “released” All Day so that everyone could have it at the same time: He wants nothing more than to recapture the thrill of a true communal pop experience.