His debut album, Secret Diary, was released in 2002. Gillis went on to release four albums: Unstoppable (2004), Night Ripper (2006), Feed the Animals (2008) and All Day (2010). All albums, released on Illegal Art website, were well-received by critics and fans. Gillis’ trademark is creating mush-up tracks, using other artists’ songs to produce his own masterpiece. Particularly with Feed the Animals, Gillis was praised for the innovation of the music style and rehabilitating disposable pop music. However the New York Times magazine appeared to have another view, describing his creation as ‘a lawsuit waiting to happen’. Despite the critique from The New York Times magazine, Gillis received Wired magazine’s Rave Award in 2007. Time magazine ranked Feed the Animals at number four on their top ten albums of 2008 list. Feed the Animals was also ranked 24 on the Rolling Stone’s top 50 albums of 2008. His biggest praise and achievement to date was in his hometown in Pittsburgh: in 2010, 7 December was officially named the ‘Gregg Michael Gillis’ day. So what’s with the name, ‘Girl Talk’? Gillis’ response was: “Just stir things up a little within the small scene I was operating from. I came from a more experimental background and there were some very overly serious, borderline academic type electronic musicians. I wanted to pick a name that they would be embarrassed to play with. Girl Talk sounded exactly the opposite of a man playing a laptop – so that’s what I chose.”
