Continuing under the pretense that this is an mp3 blog, I give you Girl Talk. I realize I’m about a month late on the GT phenomenon, which in blog time is approximately five years. So I just discovered it recently and can’t stop listening.

The obviously great thing about Night Ripper, like most mash-ups and mixes, is that it allows music snobs like me to play spot-the-sample. I can imagine sitting around with other music nerds and shouting out the source material for everything we hear. We’d have to do this almost every second, so maddeningly quick and complete are the fragments and points of contact here.

But another aspect of Night Ripper’s success is its in-joke referentiality: it appeals to a particular musical and/or generational niche, in which I’m a member. Almost all of its samples are from songs that were released when I was a child or a teenager; in other words, when I was the most aesthetically impressionable, a willing receptacle whose musical sensibilities hadn’t yet ossified. That it incorporates the best pop songs from nearly every significant era of my life so far also helps.

“Once Again” might be the best example, which is fitting because it’s the lead-off track. Here we have Ludacris colliding with my favorite Boston song, then “Bittersweet Symphony”, then “Wonderwall”, and closing with the synth solo from an old Genesis song (among another dozen or so samples). It’s like the tiny chip they implanted in my brain all those years ago is finally beginning to deliver in the form this postmodern musical bricolage specifically tailored to my demographic’s aesthetic proclivities.

Plus, it’s good ass-shaking music.