Girl Talk - Night Ripper (Illegal Art, 2006)

The first 2 Many Dj's album was awesome. However, the 'mash-up' genre that it spawned was/is not so awesome. Here's a great idea, let's combine a cheesy 80's track with a cheesy 90's track, and we'll have a great new song. Wrong! 9 times out of 10 you will simply have two crappy songs combining to make one more crappy song. Mash-ups can be cool, but it takes a lot more than simply taking the vocals from one song and playing them over the music or beat of another. Case in point: Girl Talk.
Girl Talk has been tearing up dancefloors across the U.S. for some time now, and and their album, Night Ripper, has provided the soundtrack to innumerable hipster loft parties from L.A. to Brooklyn (note: I have not yet been invited to one of these parties, so, if you can: hook me up).
To call Night Ripper an album of mash-ups would be to sell it short. It is a party starting, bootie-shaking exercise in mix-tape-mash-up-cut-and-pasting, and is basically a music snob's wet dream. At times, mixing/mashing samples from well over ten songs into an individual track - ranging from Sonic Youth, Nirvana and the Pixies; to Lady Sov, M.I.A., and Annie; to 2 Live Crew, Public Enemy, and Kanye West; to Phil Collins, Boston, and Aerosmith; and well over a hundred more - one could spend hours simply trying to identify the original source material.
Night Ripper is a genre exercise in trying to squeeze as many genres as possible into one song, in addition to making that song as funky and dance-friendly as possible. If you are looking for some music to ensure your next party is 'happening', or something simply to rock-out to in your car, or just a way to prove to your friends just how much you know about modern music, look no further than Night Ripper.

Check Out: http://www.myspace.com/girltalkmusic (Note: the Grizzly Bear remix on the site is one of the best tracks of the year, though it is not on Night Ripper, so be sure to give it a listen.)