23rd
The new Girl Talk album was rumored to have leaked last week. Apparently, the rumor was false, but nearly everybody was fooled. For a musician who makes a living resampling loops, Girl Talk’s brand is susceptible to mimicry.
As I listened to the the “fake” leak (the track “Drop It” is featured above), all I could think of was how this situation was vaguely similar to the plotline of V for Vendetta. Girl Talk obviously is playing the role of the original Guy Fawkes masked protagonist, in this case disrupting the commonly-held perception that music must come down from the record labels in a traditional system. Artists like, Speaky, the dudes actually responsible for the “leak”, are the masked carbon copy revolutionaries, further disrupting the status quo.
The original Girl Talk is already a distorted copy of something else that was not original to begin with, but his product resonates with listeners and musicians. Xerox copies of Warhol’s Campbell’s soup pasted in a collage taking on new meaning, yet again. A victory for pop-tune populists and the publishers of Plato’s CliffsNotes.
Intellectual property law enthusiasts should have a field day with this one.