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In today’s wrapup of headlines: Toby Keith isn’t ready to make nice with voters, Elton John says “goodbye” to Las Vegas’ 10-karat-bricked roads, and Gregg “Girl Talk” Gillis is thinking about maybe engaging in the art of songcraft! More »
Posts Tagged ‘Girl Talk’
William Safire Writes A Mash Note To Mash-Ups
3:00 AM on Mon Feb 16 2009 by Mike Barthel
William Safire’s “On Language” columns have gotten a lot more enjoyable since he stopped writing op-eds for The New York Times, but when he steps into a field with which he is not entirely familiar, the results cross that fine line between charming and cringey. Of course, it’s also hard to tell when he’s kidding—he self-consciously begins one sentence here with “I recall a letter written to Gov. William Scranton…”—but, well, he’s writing about “mashup.” And “remix.” You can probably tell where this is going.
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New Muxtape Offers Exciting New Chance To Listen To Middling Indie Rock… In Bright Colors!
1:00 AM on Tue Jan 27 2009 by Christopher R. Weingarten
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No. 24: Girl Talk, “Feed The Animals”
10:00 AM on Wed Dec 24 2008 by Mike Barthel
The non-music media loves to write about mash-ups, because it allows them to talk about the niche concern of pop music without much discussing music at all. Because mash-up artists use existing songs, journalists trade the difficulty of understanding new artists for reliable classics. They can talk about all the non-musical aspects of music—MP3s, piracy, copyright, major labels, downloading, iPods, etc—and they don’t look like the kind of old fuddy-duddies who champion bands that sound like the bands they themselves loved when they were young, such as Dr. Dog and Wilco.
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Stephen King Takes A Shine To Girl Talk And Al Green
1:00 AM on Mon Dec 1 2008 by Maura
Last year, Stephen King could only pick seven albums that he liked from the year’s offerings, but 2008 has apparently been kinder to King’s ears: Not only was he moved to pick a full top 10, he placed two albums—Buckcherry’s Black Butterfly and the Pretenders’ Break Up The Concrete—at No. 1. Whoa, don’t get too crazy now!
THE GOOD: Hey, I liked that Al Green album too.
THE BAD: The gallisticle (my new term for those pageview-inflating lists that are presented as galleries: feel free to pass it along!) is peppered with “dancing about architecture” punnery and “aw, gosh, EW, you don’t have to give me space in your mag” bloviation like the following: “Of all the things I write about for EW, pop music’s the hardest, because a columnist doesn’t get paid for saying, ‘I dunno, I just like it.’ But can I really explain why I love ‘I Kissed a Girl’ by Katy Perry and would be delighted never to hear Taylor Swift’s ‘You’re Not Sorry’ again? No. All I can say is that I find ‘the taste of her cherry ChapStick’ in ‘Girl’ entrancingly sexy, while everything about ‘You’re Not Sorry’… makes me sorry.” That’s the sort of wordplay that gets Uncle Stevie the big bucks! Suck it, layoff victims!
THE WHAAA? “This is as dense and allusive as James Joyce’s Ulysses, only you can dance to it.” Guess what copyright-busting PC user he said that about? Somewhere, some dude who gets paid to write about rock full-time (well, at least most of the time in this economy) is sobbing for not having thought of the Joyce allusion first.
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“Paste” Inspires Many A List-Watching Music Fan To Ask, “She & Him??”
3:00 AM on Fri Nov 21 2008 by Dan Gibson
Paste’s 2008 best-of isn’t unlike the magazine itself: largely predictable, but with a few surprises seemingly thrown in to confuse or distract. The list hews rather closely to their adult alternative aesthetic, but as likely obligated by law, they threw in Lil Wayne (No. 29). He’s not quite as good as MGMT, in case you were wondering.
THE GOOD: It cheered my heart to see that Ida Maria’s Fortress Round My Heart placed highly (No. 13); the odd, but charming acknowledgment of Torche (No. 34) elicited a similar reaction. For the Christian rock enthusiast portion of my heart, seeing Sandra McCracken buried near the bottom of the list was nice, although almost a wink and a nod to those who wonder if Paste is a undercover Christian rock mag. They may recommend Lil Wayne, but don’t worry, true believers. They still have room for Jesus rock.
THE BAD: Im sure any Idolator reader could pick out a record they don’t particularly care for and go all critically nutzoid, but Girl Talk at No. 7 seems like an odd slap in the face to the parade of “real musicians” who fall afterwards. I like Girl Talk; I downloaded the disc, and it stayed in my car stereo for a few months. But the question ends up being whether these best of lists are really running down the “best” of the year, and that the idea of lasting value and meaning is taken into consideration, or whether a disc’s inclusion just means that it was awesome to hear at parties.
THE WHAAA? Although I was surprised not to see Al Green on the list, and to note that Santogold’s Diplo mixtape outranked her actual album, nothing could top my shock to see She & Him at No. 1. The magazine defends the selection: “Maybe it’s just a sweet little folk record—a tiny, flawless diamond. Or maybe it’s a pristine distillation of harmony and craft; 50 years of songwriting experience served up on a spinning silver platter. Either way, it’s our album of the year.” To my ears, neither assertion is true. Volume One is a cute novelty record that has more preciousness than innovation, skill, or any other sort of metric people tend to judge great albums by. Last year’s number one was the National’s Boxer… this year’s pick is a long slide down in quality.
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The Idolawyer Gives Us Some Real Talk About Girl Talk
3:00 AM on Tue Nov 11 2008 by JohnPStrohm
I’ve been asked to comment on Mike Barthel’s excellent “Girl Talk is Not Fair Use,” which appeared on Idolator yesterday. I’m a transactional entertainment lawyer, so I never actually litigate copyrights. Nevertheless, I’m treading in dangerous waters because I often represent copyright owners. I don’t claim to know how federal courts would analyze a hypothetical infringement claim against Girl Talk, a.k.a. Gregg Gillis; historically courts have been inconsistent in applying fair use analysis. I do, however, have some thoughts about how such a case should be decided.
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Girl Talk Is Not Fair Use
9:30 AM on Mon Nov 10 2008 by Mike Barthel
Toronto alt-weeklies Eye and Now took sides on Greg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, in warring cover stories last week. Marc Weisblott’s piece in Eye takes the “anti-” position, expanding on some of the criticism of copyfighters posted here in recent weeks and raising further questions about the implications of the BoingBoing model for the record industry. Evan Davies’ Now piece goes for the “pro,” though copyfight supporters might wish he didn’t, given ridiculous arguments like “what [Gillis is] doing isn’t really any different from what Beethoven did early on after studying Mozart.” While both articles assume that what Gillis is doing amounts to theft, they never actually demonstrate that this assumption is true. Indeed, Gillis contends that his CDs are entirely legal, and should be classified not as copyright infringement but as fair use. But would his fair use defense really stand up in court?
