Speaking of Re-mixing

Wow, Ashley, you really set me up for nice little post here, as Girl Talk is one of the featured artists in my thesis at the moment. Also, one quick observation after watching those videos you linked too. It was interesting seeing how he both altered and adhered to our construction of a musical performer. He was really just screwing around with his computer on a stage. He still danced quite a bit and interacted with his audience a tremendous amount, but his instrument was the same thing I'm using to type this response - a very nontraditional instrument at best. The moment for me that really highlighted this odd situation was during his cover of the Nirvana song where he ran off into the back of the crowd. As a musician, I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to do something like that, but been constrained by the physical limitations of the instrument I've been playing. The computer appears to allow the artist a level of interactive freedom with his/her audience (are we touching on Manovich yet?) that we've never seen before. But equally as interesting to me is to witness the response of the crowd at the front of the stage when Girl Talk leaves it. The precarious balance that the performer/artist has been executing is suddenly shattered as everyone realizes that they are simply dancing around a computer, and why couldn't they do this on their own? The dancing gets listless and their gazes follow the performer to the back of the room since the stage is so utterly visually inert. Then Girl Talk returns and the crowd is reinvigorated either reminded or deceived once again that there is a concert going on. However you want to look at it.

As for mash-ups, I'm surprised you only encountered them this past summer. My understanding is that the first ridiculously popular mash-up, which defined the genre (of mixed genres), was done in 2001 by Freelance Hellraiser. It was a mix between The Strokes (I think it was "Hard to Explain") and "Genie in a Bottle" by Christina Aguilera, entitled "A Stroke of Genius." From there the genre took off. One of my favorite mash-up artists is 2 Many DJs, whose combination of U2 and Eminem in "With or Without Me" indicated to me the sheer awesomeness available. Mash-ups are becoming more than two recognizable simultaneous cultural references - they are truly becoming their own artistic entities. I'm sure you're also familiar with the infamous Grey Album, the combination of Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatles' White Album. I've also heard Jay's Black Album with Weezer's Blue Album, but it's not nearly as good. The problem with most mashups is that they tend to be too gimmicky. Q-Unit is some anonymous guy who mixed 50 Cent songs with Queen songs. It works on a couple of tracks, but the gimmick gets old over the course of a full album.

This is one reason why Girl Talk works so well. He abandons the notion that you're humorously combining two songs as some sort of joke (certainly Freelance Hellraiser's initial ambition). Instead he cuts and pastes pieces as they fit. He doesn't rely on the structure of any pre-existing song he's using. His borrowed elements are so short in most cases that no discernible structure can be determined from the elements themselves. Instead, he creates mashed-up tracks that utilize dozens of different components. Some of his most incredible moments are more traditional mash-ups (Notorious B.I.G.'s "Juicy" over the top of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" comes immediately to mind) but they don't last over the course of songs and there's no gimmick - it just works. I think he's done/doing wonders for legitimizing the mash-up as its own genre form. And it definitely problematizes our notions of authorship. So thanks for bringing that one up Ashley, and any time you want to listen to some mash-ups, let me know.