Girl Talk

Pittsburgh mixmaster Girl Talk has been floating near the top of The Hype Machine and today was awarded a unit-shifting 8.0 on Pitchfork for Feed The Animals. So when I hit play I hoped for something wondrous, possibly a distillation of the past 50 odd years of pop music. Mr Girl Talk's schtick is mashing up the mash-up by condensing approximately one million poptacular samples into each track. (Well, maybe not a million, but you know what I mean.) There's a Hot Chip with The Cardigans' Lovefool, then a moment of Jay-Z with Paranoid Android. It feels like no moment of sublime pop is untouched, from Ace of Base's All That She Wants to Beastie Boys' Bodymovin'. Busta Rhymes. Metallica. Lil Wayne. Procul Haram. Et-bloody-cetera.
2005 just called. It wants its bastard pop back.
I realise it's supposed to be oh so clever by putting familiar sounds into new contexts, but it's so artless. Oh Pitchfork, what were you thinking? Feed The Animals is an extended megamix dependent on the pop musical genius of other people and the fact that most pop songs stick to a 4/4 beat. And pitch-shifting, lots of pitch-shifting. It's Strawberry Jam for people who find Animal Collective a bit, you know, weird.
It sounds like that daily Jo Whiley competition (The Shuffle?) dragged out for over 50 minutes. People who say they like this are just congratulating themselves because they feel clever for recognising the samples. Er, well done, you've listened to a lot of music.