SnowGhost Music

Every now and then there is something, whether it’s a toy, a phrase, a movie or a song that wins over fans of all ages. For your consideration, the Rubik’s cube. Not only is my spell check familiar with the word, but so is anyone who was alive in the ‘80s. Some people got it for their 40th birthday, some people got it for hitting a home run in little league, but we all loved it or hated it at some point. Also, “Ain’t no shame in my game.” I remember listening to Guru say it in the early ‘90s, and I just heard a sixty-something lady say it while she was cleaning up a campsite bathroom about a month ago. Consider further that Surf’s Up is one of the two best films ever made about penguins not only to me, but also to my 6-year-old niece and my sixty-year-old father.

And now for your current consideration, a recent conversation:

Fifty-something dude with pretty good taste in music: I’ve been really digging on the new Girl Talk. It’s a big improvement. I mean, he totally raided classic rock and nailed it.

Me : I’ve heard good things, but I still haven’t heard it.

A more recent conversation:

Teenager with pretty good taste in music: I can’t stop listening to Girl Talk. It’s the most amazing shit. It’s pretty much the best album ever. Have you heard it?

Me: Yes. It made me feel like I was on drugs.

Teenager with pretty good taste in music: Were you?

Me: I’m not sure. Would you like to see the inside of my windowless cargo van?

Teenager running away very fast: No thanks.

Actually, I do have a mostly windowless cargo van, and though I wish it had more windows, it does have a stereo that I use for NPR and CD enjoyment. One such recent enjoyment did in fact include the new Girl Talk album. The previous album also made a brief appearance in the van, but it sounded too much like someone flipping through radio stations, albeit very expertly and in a city with great stations across the dial. It also made me feel like I must’ve forgotten the three cups of coffee I had in the morning as I drank my third red bull for lunch. But this one just made me feel stoned, which is okay, especially if you’re listening to music. I recognized some old songs, some of the new songs, and even marveled at the incredible amount of synchronization that this DJ can find. At the very least, it’s very entertaining. At the very best, it’s mad scientist genius.

I’ll say it’s somewhere in between, and I’ll probably listen to it a few times before I get a little sick of it and shelve it for a while. I do like that you can put it on at any point of the album and not really know where you are at first, or care for that matter. For those a bit more familiar with it, it might be fun to guess what track you’re on, since the album never really stops. Or maybe if you were in a room full of people with at least one teenager and one older person, and perhaps everybody in the room had a pretty good awareness of popular music over the past 30 years, you could have a guess the sample party. You could award points for each correctly identified original song, with special points added to songs either sped up or slowed down. Girl Talk- The Game! would certainly be a big hit, especially if you split it into era editions.

But that’s not going to happen. What might happen, however, is greater recognition of the mash-up. And with greater recognition will come greater imitation. It’s a certainty that many people have You-tubed Gregg Gillis demonstrating how easy it can be to make a half-assed mash-up. Of course, his tracks are definitely not half-assed, and he probably has an encyclopedic knowledge of music from the past 30 or so years. Not to mention that he’s got an ear (and probably a bpm meter) for knowing when two songs from opposite sides of the tracks might make beautiful music together. How much a part of the mainstream the mash-up scene becomes is up for argument. I thought The Grey Album was going to be a hit, but there were some copyright issues. Also, can the mash-up really sustain repeated listens, especially without the aid of drugs or a dance floor?

For now, the kids, the cool older folks, and all the people in between seem to dig the new album. It’s hard not to have fun with it, just like it’s hard not to have fun with penguins. Whether or not it ends up next to the Rubik’s cube attracting dust particles in the furthest reaches of our proverbial fad closet, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.