The genius of 20th C. recording industry culture was to create a shared experience in a known song more successfully than the oral tradition or sheet music industry had done. The Girl Talk knack for taking those shared experiences and creating new experiences is fascinating.

I wonder, though, about whether this is new. I read that in Iceland everyone learns the same folk songs, so that there is a massive shared simple song culture, which would seem to me a rich and less ‘rivalous’ way to share culture.