If you’re the kind of person who loves dance-your-ass-off pop artists as much as solemly-knodding-your-head indie bands, then there’s a good chance that Girl Talk’s Greg Gilliss is your new messiah. The Pittsburgh native and longtime DJ builds his tracks from songs so variable in age and style that we have as much fun listening to them clashing as coming together, all the while laughing in disbelief that Frank Black and Lil’ Jon are singing in chorus through our speakers.
“Night Ripper” is not an album without precedent. The Avalanches’ classic “Since I Left You” introduced the concept of the wild sample album way back in 2001, amazing listeners as much with its harmony as with its enormous list of sources (its U.S. release was delayed for over a year after five different artists sued them for sampling them without giving proper credit). And DJ Shadow’s now ten-year-old “…Endtroducing” remains the top dog of all mash-up records, overshadowing its descendants even to this day. The uniqueness of “Night Ripper,” then, comes not from any desire to start a revolution in the music world; instead Greg Gilliss, like the Rapture before him, wants to lighten us scene kids up by mixing our longtime favorites with the smash-hit guilty pleasures we can never admit we like. Best of all, these two song types sound, when put together by a careful and close-listening DJ, as though they have always belonged together; beneath all successful songs, after all, lie universally appealing structures.
“Once Again” opens with a gasp pulled straight from Ciara’s “Goodies;” soon Ludacris joins in, broadcasting the album’s party-soundtrack intentions first and foremost. Oasis and Boston soon enter the fray, layering isolated bass progressions into a stew that eventually includes Suzuki method violin and later-era Genesis. The rest of the album, with rare exception, follows the same formula from there on out, creating a foundation of club music and hip-hop and placing its lighter and more obscure beats on the periphery. When we hear the classic two-note strum of the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” it exists as the ground beneath our feet for only a second, soon giving way to Nas and Puff Daddy. This gives us all the dance material we need, but it also gets repetitive; a working formula is still a formula. And it’s disappointing that Gilliss didn’t try harder to put his favorite underground acts on center stage for once. It seems that, even for all its novelty, Night Ripper can’t fully demolish the anti-fun stigma that has always tainted indie music’s image.
The album’s ability to bring together all different types of music fans wouldn’t mean a thing without dance credentials. Fortunately, this is where the album really shines: besides being an interesting and enlightening exercise in name-dropping, it’s the greatest album to play in a crowded room. Every track samples at least one primal thump that anchors the song in rhythmic bedrock; when “Summer Smoke” and “Bounce That” come through our speakers we find our hips move of their own accord.
If you’re holding a party anytime within the next few months, put this album on. Serve drinks. Watch your friends discover that their years of horn-rimmed awkwardness can mean something on the dance floor. Make a mental note to hunt down Greg Gilliss and shake his hand for finally making an album that clubbers and hipsters can agree on.
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