Night Ripper

Night Ripper is the third studio album by American musician Gregg Gillis, released under his stage name Girl Talk on May 9, 2006 by Illegal Art.

Produced as one seamless piece of music before subsequently being broken into individual tracks, Night Ripper was composed by Gillis in a period of around eight months, during which he divided time between production of the album and his work as a biomedical engineer.

Night Ripper received generally positive reviews from critics, who commended Gillis' choice of samples and his efficiency at layering them together to create new tracks.

[2] The album's stylistic change was brought about by Gillis' experiences performing live, which influenced him to "make the music more accessible and push the party vibe.

[2] Described by Gillis as "a record that reflects [his] own personal music tastes," Night Ripper features over 300 samples of other artists' songs, spanning several decades and genres.

[3] Strong demand prompted the label to produce physical CD and LP copies of the album for shipping to select record stores,[3] as well as make it available for purchase on several online retailers.

[12] When asked about the possibility of suing Gillis and Illegal Art, however, one major-label executive stated his belief that filing a lawsuit against a minor independent label – especially for an album which, at that point, had barely sold 10,000 copies – would only bring bad publicity.

praised the album's "extraordinary" cohesion and wrote: "Gillis is a rigorous craftsman, and his assembling skill is near perfect down to the second, introducing the next song at the most opportune moment.

"[29] Pitchfork's Sean Fennessey also responded favorably, commending the "pure precision" of Girl Talk's sampling and naming the album the "soundtrack of the summer" for 2006.

[23] Robert Christgau, in his "Consumer Guide" column for MSN Music, called Night Ripper "the best mash-up album since 2002's The Best Bootlegs in the World Ever" and compared Girl Talk to prominent samplers DJ Shadow and The Avalanches, "only with obvious samples rather than obscure ones".

"[6] Similarly, Nate Dorr of PopMatters remarked that the album "holds undeniable appeal, both for sample trainspotters and music geeks... as well as, more importantly perhaps, for the much broader cross-section of listeners who just want to put on a consistently catchy, entertaining record.

A Caucasian man wearing a tie performs music using a laptop. Several people dance around him.
Girl Talk performing in 2006