I’ve now spun Girl Talk’s Feed The Animals, released this past Wednesday, no less than a dozen times. We’re talking continuous plays here – the whole album, all the way through. No album in my collection has ever received this kind of undivided attention.
It’s breathtaking.
I wondered, as Rex did, if this album would be better than Gillis’s last and, further, what that even means for an artist who simply repurposes the work of others.
It’s all about raising the stakes of the game. To my ears, Gillis has done that simply by doubling down on the emotional weight.
It took me about five go-rounds to get there. Even if you’ve spent a bunch of time with Girl Talk’s last several albums, it’s hard not to be bowled over by the whole unthinkable mass of the thing. Complicating matters are Gillis’s mixing and mastering skills, which, on a strictly technical level, seem to be improving with every album. There’s just something different about the quality of tone that Gillis is squeezing from these songs.
But that soul.
Where Night Ripper had only a handful of really emotionally evocative moments – the best of which nearly became legendary – Feed The Animals is full to the brim with hair-on-end, moist-eyed revelations. Granted, we’re not talking conventional tear-jerker material. “Jessie’s Girl” has never sounded sweeter than it does here, laid against Three 6 Mafia’s “I’d Rather.” Then there’s Tone Loc and Fleetwood Mac building the base for Trina’s sweet-but-suggestive “I’ve Got A Thing For You.” “Play Your Part (pt. 1),” the album’s very first track, laces Lil’ Wayne with Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Wayne slinging “Pick ‘em up? Fuck ‘em, let ‘em lay / Where I’m from, we see a fuckin’ dead body every day” just before Sinead belts out the line that made her famous. It’s the tension baked in, hope and resignation, that makes the moment. And it’s Shawnna’s refrain, “I was gettin’ some head,” that rips us back out.
But to what end? Why would someone piss on such a special moment?
Aww, hush up. Who cares? Let’s dance.
Whaddya think?