Let's Get Pomo About Girl Talk (Copyright meets Art Crit)
[Housekeeping: Team Chicago, we have a game against Tuesday night boredom next week on July 15th. 7:30pm, Big Chicks. Check the calendar.]
Sorry I haven't blogged yet this week. My music listening has been kidnapped by the new Girl Talk album. I downloaded it on a whim -- it's a pay-what-you-want download -- and thought it would only last two or three full listens. I've never been a huge fan of mash-up artists (sampling and juxtaposing other songs), but this goes way beyond mash-up, and now I can't stop listening.
The Sound Opinions guys have emphasized the aspect of Girl Talk's music as bricolage, and I'm in their camp now. Bricolage is a popular term to throw around in art and literary criticism, with the ideal bricolage artist taking stolen/borrowed/copied and seemingly disparate elements and recomposing them in such a way as to reframe or reinterpret the meanings of the source materials. Bricolage's frequent fault is that no commentary is made on the source, and the juxtaposition is merely interesting but not revelatory or insightful.
One could argue that a DJ like Gregg Gillis (the man behind Girl Talk), who is essentially only sampling pop, rock, and hip-hop, isn't combining disparate elements, but they're certainly not intuitive combinations when you take into account the historical breadth of Gillis's samples ("Whiter Shade of Pale", "No Diggity", Nine Inch Nails, Gwen Stefani, and hundreds others).
I think he's met the bar even for art school kids and pomo crits to apply the bricolage label -- which is actually quite important for Gillis from a legal standpoint. He's using unlicensed samples under the supposed protection of the Copyright Act's Fair Use clause, which allows unlicensed usage of copyrighted works if it's in a critical or satirical context. (The same clause also covers educational usage, which could maybe apply here in a stretch.)
I love it when all of this high-faluten pomo stuff gets applied in real life.
[And if you're wondering where the next Monthly Mix challenge is, I've decided to space them out a little bit so that I can devote more blog-space to friticism (fun + criticism), or perhaps re-devote, since I used to be writing a lot more fritical pieces -- like this one -- than in the past month or so. More on that soon.]
Sorry I haven't blogged yet this week. My music listening has been kidnapped by the new Girl Talk album. I downloaded it on a whim -- it's a pay-what-you-want download -- and thought it would only last two or three full listens. I've never been a huge fan of mash-up artists (sampling and juxtaposing other songs), but this goes way beyond mash-up, and now I can't stop listening.
The Sound Opinions guys have emphasized the aspect of Girl Talk's music as bricolage, and I'm in their camp now. Bricolage is a popular term to throw around in art and literary criticism, with the ideal bricolage artist taking stolen/borrowed/copied and seemingly disparate elements and recomposing them in such a way as to reframe or reinterpret the meanings of the source materials. Bricolage's frequent fault is that no commentary is made on the source, and the juxtaposition is merely interesting but not revelatory or insightful.
One could argue that a DJ like Gregg Gillis (the man behind Girl Talk), who is essentially only sampling pop, rock, and hip-hop, isn't combining disparate elements, but they're certainly not intuitive combinations when you take into account the historical breadth of Gillis's samples ("Whiter Shade of Pale", "No Diggity", Nine Inch Nails, Gwen Stefani, and hundreds others).
I think he's met the bar even for art school kids and pomo crits to apply the bricolage label -- which is actually quite important for Gillis from a legal standpoint. He's using unlicensed samples under the supposed protection of the Copyright Act's Fair Use clause, which allows unlicensed usage of copyrighted works if it's in a critical or satirical context. (The same clause also covers educational usage, which could maybe apply here in a stretch.)
I love it when all of this high-faluten pomo stuff gets applied in real life.
[And if you're wondering where the next Monthly Mix challenge is, I've decided to space them out a little bit so that I can devote more blog-space to friticism (fun + criticism), or perhaps re-devote, since I used to be writing a lot more fritical pieces -- like this one -- than in the past month or so. More on that soon.]
posted by Ian at 7/09/2008 09:08:00 AM
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