Brain Salad Surgery is DJ Quickie Mart’s answer to Girl Talk, and at one level it’s a winner and at another, it’s a swing and a miss. Like Gregg Gillis—Girl Talk’s real name—Quickie Mart melds hundreds of uncleared rock, pop, soul and hip-hop samples into an entertaining mix, mashing up and building new songs out of well-known pieces. It’s the pop process at its most literal (Green Day’s “21 Guns,” for example, is Billie Joe Armstrong’s words over “San Francisco” in the verse and “All the Young Dudes” in the chorus). Periodically, Quickie Mart hits on something brilliant, merging M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” and Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians’ “What I Am,” and moments later, the Smiths’ “How Soon is Now” backs Jay-Z’s “99 Problems.”

Still, Brain Salad Surgery is a bit of a so-what. Night Ripper and Feed the Animals are giddier, partially because they rock harder. Girl Talk’s beats aren’t as varied or as well constructed as Quickie Mart’s, but their near-punk immediacy revs up a room almost automatically. More significantly, though, Girl Talk’s about pop music, while Brain Salad Surgery’s about DJ skills. Gillis recreates classic pop into a 21st Century incarnation without any undue reverence or any casual slags. He lets songs speak across genre and time to each other, while Quickie Mart makes very cool mash-ups. Girl Talk has made it clear that he doesn’t consider himself a DJ, and his musical background is in avant-garde music, not hip-hop or DJ culture. For that reason, Quickie Mart’s decision to take him on on terms Girl Talk never claimed to speak is a bit puzzling. Fortunately, Brain Salad Surgery’s good fun, but it’s not more than that.