'Torn Up' actually stumbles a little out of the gates. The first track, 'Smash That' is pretty weak. Opening the album with a vocal from Eminem, and newer Eminem at that, is a bad idea. If it was Em circa 1999, that would be sweet, but he's been slipping for a while now. However, after this initial misstep, E-603 gets back to what he's good at. The second track, 'Lights Out' is very solid, and from there, the mixing continues, with E being unafraid to slow things down, using soul and older R&B instrumentals, and then switch back over seamlessly to having Ratatat backing up DMX on the transition from 'The Right Kind' to 'If You Wanna.' The songs on 'Torn Up' are longer than on 'Something for Everyone,' and the whole album runs much longer, but the tracks still all are mixed so that you can listen to the entire album straight through and it will sound like a single track. The one problem with the added length, is that you feel like E-603 is digging further and further into his digital "record bin," and also has to let samples play out longer than they maybe deserve, like the sample of City High at the end of 'If You Wanna' or my unfortunately being reminded of the existence of Limp Bizkit by their inclusion in 'Push 'em Up.' Other standout tracks are 'Dirtbag Baby,' 'Hey Shorty,' and 'Keep it Cool' (love the New Order at the end). Overall, the album is another great effort, and one in which E-603 showcases his skills more, chopping samples, and also dropping in very subtle samples in the background (listen for Crazy Town's 'Butterfly' at the beginning of 'Shake Your Rump'). I think it will be hard for E-603 to ever match Girl Talk in terms of showmanship or fan base, but musically, he continues to surpass him.
Posts
18 comments:
E-603 and Easter Egg produce much better album. I saw girl talk when he came to australia last time and live show, girl talk was something special on this particular occasion. But i agree, E603 and Easter Egg (everyone should look them up) album's are better produced and songs mashed extremely well. Not taking anything away from girl talk whose last album was great.
This is good stuff. I agree that it is a lot smoother than Girltalk, and I think it captures a mood better too (Girltalk has always been a bit to schizophrenic for me). I haven't heard E-603's first album, but I'll have to check it out.
This guy uses the EXACT same samples that Girl Talk has been using since the Night Ripper days. Out of the THOUSANDS of pop songs available to choose from he uses the same samples.... hmmmmm, that should tell you something about his ability as an artist. Showmanship has nothing to do with it, the reason the room explodes when Girl Talk starts playing is because he's a genius with an ear for the perfect mash-up. The reason 15 people in a crowd of 100 are sort of dancing when 603 or Stereo Wars or Easter Egg are playing is because they are failing at fail to rip off what GT does to perfection. Check your your cred at the door. Seriously, play this crap in front of your friends and get laughed into changing the song less than a minute into it.
@Anonymous: True, Girl Talk has been in the game for a lot longer. However, there are only so many pop songs out there that people will recognize, which is what this type of music is all about. I think E-603 actually does a better job of throwing in some more obscure stuff as well (although I'm told that in his early days, Girl Talk was playing to 20 people in art galleries, mashing up underground indie rock and New Wave, and other less poppy combinations). Also, listen to E-603's first album. It came out before 'Feed The Animals' and many of the samples it used were also used on 'FTA.' It's a small musical world, so there's going to be overlap, and so long as two guys aren't playing the same two samples on top of each other, there's no need to argue about who got there first.
Regardless of samples, E-603 really bites Girl Talk's style. You can collage songs together in many different ways. E-603 sounds like he's just trying to sound like Girl Talk.
I think Girl Talk is much smoother too. Listen to "Feed The Animals" again. The transitions are perfect. E-603 has now flow, no peaks or valleys.
i can't believe people think this is anywhere near as good as girl talk. girl talk is way beyond this. he's so much more technically advanced. girl talk's sample source is way more diverse as well. this is a simple knock off. no one will care about this in 3 months. people will talk about those girl talk albums as landmarks in remix music for a long time.
Complete rip off of girl talk. I can't believe this made it onto hypem's most popular. You'd have to be a retarded sheep that has lived in a cave for the past year to enjoy this.
Greg Gillis has nothing to worry about.
"Landmarks in remix music" sounds like a stretch to me for Girl Talk. He's brought one particular style of bastard pop to the mainstream. He doesn't have to worry about other artists coming after him, because he's already established, with huge name rec, Windows commercials, and sold out shows. Just to give the objections a fair shot, today while at work I listened to both Girl Talk albums and both E-603 albums all the way through. I think both of them had better debut albums, but I would still choose to listen to 'Something For Everyone' over 'Night Ripper' and 'Torn Up' over 'Feed the Animals.' There were a number of songs on 'FTA' where I felt there was a real gap in the middle with a poor transition, and by the end of the album, I was tired of listening to it. Not so with 'Torn Up.' This could just be novelty, but 'FTA' has never been much of a repeat listener for me, unlike 'Something for Everyone.' In the end, calling out E-603 for having a similar style to Girl Talk is laughable. It's hard to really innovate in music. Girl Talk was putting his own spin on what other mash-up artists were doing. To throw in a sports metaphor, if Girl Talk invented the Fosbury Flop, in my opinion, E-603 is raising the bar. Just because he came second doesn't mean he shouldn't get recognition for doing it very well, if not better.
i thought it was silly to say this was a rip-off of girl talk too - but the album graphic? come on - its awfully similar to the night ripper cover: jagged cut out font on black with purple.
@JMart: I'm assuming you're talking about all the little "Girl Talk"s in the background (http://betterpropaganda.com/images/artwork/Night_Ripper-Girl_Talk_480.jpg)? Valid point. I think the problem is not so much the similarity between those two covers, though, and the fact that everyone in the electro/bloghouse music scene is trying for the same sort of neon, back to the 80s aesthetic, so it all winds up looking alike.
the first track from the album samples d12's "40 oz" from 2004 that eminem was featured on. maybe you should do your research before saying that it's brand new eminem?
@the last Anon: Why do research? That's why I said "newer Eminem." Not "brand new." The song isn't any good, and Eminem's been going downhill for a long time, in my view. There are a lot of samples on the album that I consider to be shitty rap, but I can tolerate that from Shawty Lo and Souljaboy(tellem)so long as the mashup works. When I'm hearing vocals from someone like Eminem who's proven his talent and then fallen off, it's just sad.
OH HAY GUYS HAVE YOU HEARD OF 2MANYDJ's OR MAYBE NEAGTIVELAND???
Seriously, everyone needs to understand that Night Ripper was NOT the first compositional sampling album ever put out. It's not even the first mash-up album to use pop songs exclusively.
Additionally, there are only so many A Capella's publicly available. It's not a matter of 'ripping off' as much as 'resource limitations'. Listen to the background tracks, and try to tell me that E-603 'rips off' Girl Talk.
BTW, his first album was released 7 months before GT released Feed The Animals. There are tons of recycled samples... oh well...
@Kai: I agree! As this genre defines itself we will definitely see some similarities graphically as well as musically. This is exciting and cool. (I also agree that there is certainly something about eminem's voice in mash-ups that makes me cringe/seems-unavoidably-stale-or-something.
@Anonymous-know-it-all-coward
Any song released as an instrumental can also be turned into an a capella. Maybe you never understood rudimentary addition but it goes like this...
A+(-B)=C
Where A is the original track, B is the instrumental version of the track (-B being the inverse of instrumental) , and C is the resulting a capella.
O HAY - Please don't insult the entire mash-up genre by talking in LOLSPEAK and saying that its limited to a few thousand songs.
Somewhere along the road, E603 had a listen to GT and was certainly influenced by him. This is admirable and in no way a dig. He has a completely different style, built around a lengthier cohesive marriage between the tracks combined rather than the "glitchier" rapid build ups of energy that girl talk executes so flawlessly.
For what its worth I do NOT think that Mr. Gillis was influenced by E603.
For what its worth I love them both. (and Eminem too)
For anyone thrown by the similarity between Girl Talk and E-603, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they chill and smoke bowls together(?)
Using original tracks further develops the genre and keeps it fresh, but it's nice to hear how two different people can uniquely interpret a song and mash it in very different ways. While Something For Everyone probably had 70% of the same songs as Night Ripper and Feed the Animals, it was still fun to hear new permutations of something you already know and love. Thats part of why mash ups are great, Don't criticize a DJ for copying someone's sh*t when everyone is just sampling other work in the first place.
With his new album, E-603 showed that he can incorporate a whole new set of songs that GT has never touched. I'd make a list, but I have only been through Torn Up once.
Also, give E-603 some credit for nearly doubling the length of this album vs SFE (56 vs 37 min). A comparison of both works shows growth in his creativity and complexity. Check out how he teases the listener with small cuts of a sample that jumps in and out, eventually banging full force for the 20+ seconds that we cherish E-603 for (unlike GT's ADD with some great songs you want to last longer)
Bottom line is E-603 gave party hosts another "set it and forget it" playlist to bang at their next dance party. Instead of pitting GT vs E-603, enjoy the fact that they are giving your lazy ass more music that no one at school has heard yet.
I go to school with E-603, I can vouch for the above comment's claim that Ethan knows Gregg. They're not BFFs, but Ethan manages to snag guest list passes to every GT concert in the Northeast.
Additionally, everything he said. I think that's kind of what Oh HAY was trying to point out, that there shouldn't be a comparison made because GT wasn't the first either. It's awesome that different DJ's make different music. Cheers.
who fuckin cares if hes biting off someones style. its music enjoy it.
Check out "Do Your Thing" (1:05) when he mashes "I Kissed a Girl" and Madonna. Another example of why this album is great.
Post a Comment