It's incredible to me that an artist with sales as modest as Girl Talk seems to have dominated such a large number of my conversations about music. This week I got into an argument with a fellow musician about whether or not Girl Talk's mash up music can actually be considered music or just creative DJ'ing. I of course, argued that of course it's music. I believe that as a musician, the moment you play your songs for another person, they own part of the song as well. Their listenership contributes to the music's existence and they are therefore entitled to create any secondary meaning they like. That includes the creation of derivative work.



Then I went to a Girl Talk concert last night. Don't get me wrong,belief in his artistry has not changed. But I have to say that I was disappointed when I realized how Top 40 his music had become in the course of just one album cycle. The last time I saw him perform was at Bonarroo 2007 and his mash-ups drew much more heavily on obscure tracks and 'oh shit, no he didn't' moments. But when he started mashing up Kelly Clarkson's "Since You Been Gone" for a crowd of underage, drunk kids from New Jersey, I realized that he was possibly playing more for his audience than himself. Every musician should know the audience that they are playing for and perform accordingly, but that shouldn't twist your musical sensibilities so drastically. I'm more convinced now that Girl Talk may be more of an incredibly innovative DJ than a musician with a "derivative work".

The main question I've asked myself about Girl Talk is: how has this guy not been sued yet!? He has claimed that his use of samples from other recordings constitutes as a fair use because the clips are all so small that their contribution to the song's overall sound is minimal. While his point is valid, considering his last album sampled over 300 recordings, it is still surprising that not a soul has tried to file a lawsuit. It has been suggested that copyright holders are too intimidated by the legal precedent that might be set by such a case. If Girl Talk won a law suit against any of these copyright holders it would expand the definition of fair use exponentially and grant an unprecedented BOO YA to the content industry in the name of remix culture.