GIRL TALK
Feed the Animals
(Illegal Art)
*** (out of 5)
“Play Your Part (Pt. 1),” the opening track on mashup DJ Gregg Gillis’ new CD Feed the Animals, is assembled from pieces of 23 individual songs. We begin with the drumbeat from Roy Orbison’s “Oh Pretty Woman,” the bassline and organ riff from The Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’,” and the rap from UGK’s “International Player’s Anthem”—and before the song is over four minutes later, we’ll hear Ludacris, Sinéad O’Connor, Jay-Z, Rage Against the Machine, Huey Lewis, and Twisted Sister joining in the fun. The song, like the rest of Feed the Animals, is complex, funny, ingenious... and ultimately a little exhausting.
Gillis does this stuff about as well as anybody... but is it art, avant-garde music criticism, or just the ultimate wedding-reception mixtape? The album is probably most interesting as an act of provocation against copyright-hogging record companies—is it only a matter of time before Gillis gets sued back into the Stone Age?—but it’s a provocation without content, as suggested by the purposely generic song titles (“Like This,” “Hands in the Air,” “Here’s the Thing,” “Don’t Stop”).
Gillis may very well be a genius, but Feel the Animals still winds up feeling like much, much less than the sum of its parts.
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