Girl Talk

All Day (Illegal Art)

By Jodi Root
Published: December 9th, 2010 | 7:00am

Download servers and dance floors simultaneously crashed when Gregg Gillis, better known to the hipster mainstream as Girl Talk, unexpectedly dropped his fifth album November 15. Released as a free download, All Day is Gillis’ first release since 2008’s classic dance party clusterfuck Feed the Animals. Following an announcement of three-plus months of non-stop touring come 2011, it’s no wonder the sample master can afford to give an album away.

Gillis described it as his “most complicated” record of mash-ups meant to be listened to as a whole versus individual tracks, which is apparent from the first listen. If you’re a fan of Girl Talk’s previous work, chances are you’ll like All Day, but compared to Feed the Animals, it’s nothing new. Sure, Gillis jams in that many more samples than before, but he strays away from his comfortable (yet successful) formula of dirty hip-hop meeting commercial pop into the more obscure and raucous rock genre. Do we really need to hear Aphex Twin and Soulja Boy (“Get It Get It”) or White Zombie and the Ying Yang Twins (“On and On”)? Not really. It’s almost as if All Day serves as Gillis’ opportunity to brag how awesome and vast his record collection is, versus a creation of cutting edge and avant-garde remixes. That isn’t to say dude forgot how to party, and there is still a decent handful of addicting hybrids such as “Let it Out” with Black Rob/Fugazi/Rihanna as well as the gothic meets gangsta booty-dropper “Jump on Stage” with Portishead/Big Boi.

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Girl Talk MySpace page

Illegal Art Records