Beck - Morning Phase

haha

Flamboyant goon OTM

all of his albums have SOMETHING to recommend them but that run is crazy solid

The Information is sweet

morning wood phase

I didn't think there was anything "fake" about his best four records (imo) Mellow Gold + Stereopathetic + One Foot + Odelay, they were freewheeling and unserious and fun in a Ween/Cibo Matto/Harry Nilsson kind of way.

this is OTM but like I can get, in a personal sense I feel like I can get, how Beck would eventually want to say "there's another Beck who's more focused than that and I relate more to him than the the guy who I'll be known as forever if I keep that up"

I just wish "a more focused Beck" didn't sound like Air

That's kind of unfair. Realistically I don't think anybody can put Calvin Johnson on bgvs, or put a BBQ recording of "Ozzy", do cotton-ball-mouth first take raps, write songs like "Mutherfucka" etc., nobody can do those things a second time, or past the age of 26, or after having any sort of success, or pressure on you to move units for Geffen.

Pressure to move units for Capitol, as of this record.

"I just wish "a more focused Beck" didn't sound like Air" or air for that matter

i think that his move to major labels just made him a worse artist, i don't care if he does the old stuff he did again, just wish his newer stuff was better.

(he aint no SY or Nirvana for that matter)

New Moon is streaming everywhere. and it's meh

strange song - might be a grower, but I'm a bit tired with that vocal style & FX he seems to be have been using for the last 10 years.

i am amused at how "Morning" is practically a carbon copy of "Golden Age"

I love his early stuff so much but he hasn't made an interesting record since Midnite Vultures

And he never will again, it's not like he's going to give up all his world comforts and marriage and get lost and weird again

Love this track.

this seems like it could be good. but i feel like it's already obvious it will be considered beck's comeback album. like, it will resemble "sea change" and also be beck's highest p&j charter since that album. most people who don't know that he released "song reader" -- an album that's not actually something you can put on and listen to! -- last year are thinking "what happened to beck?" totally the right time for him to be like "yo, here i am." and also capitol's probably willing to spend a lot on him since he's new to their stable. ba da bing ba da ba it's like "beck we hardly knew ye!" lots of middle-aged rock critics out there who have a lot invested in believing that "odelay" wasn't a fluke.

this album is embarrassing.

(Harmonica solo)

I miss his sense of humor

More like Boring Phase

Is he trying to capitalize on post-Mumford and Sons shtick or something

more like trying to capitalize by recycling himself, doing generic indie folk

I forgot Beck invented generic indie folk

It's mainly the production and arrangements that don't appeal to me wrt post-00s Beck. Like if he forced himself to make this album on a 4-track it would somehow be WAYYYY better.

Like if "Today Has Been a Fucked Up Day" was recorded now it would have 64 layers of vocals and tambourines and people stomping and stuff.

he is the godfather of it, in a way...

but now it seems Bon Iver took his place

xpost

yeah, trying too hard to be "pretty"..

Wish he would record Ozzy Pt. 2

The flipside of calling this generic would be to say that it's archetypal. I like its subtleties, like the contrasting melodic contour in the second verse and the way the chorus is segmented. Also think his voice sounds great.

http://timeentertainment.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/20140119_beck_morning_phase_91.jpg
that is the cover not the hideous thing upthread.

"new moon" sounds promising, i quite like the banjo playing.

Start at track 3

i've lsitened to this record twice now and i might even listen to it again at some point

wow, really expected this to be better

I can think of few big artists I have lower expectations for than Beck...

It's a bummer this does seem rather tepid on first listen, considering all the amazing stuff he's been doing very under the radar the last few years. The Record Club 'Oar' full-album cover remains one of my favorite albums of the 2010s (http://www.beck.com/recordclub/index.php/category/skip-spence-oar). And this is one of the very best pieces of music I've heard in the last couple years, from any time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaKrnjY8LiY

^ this. Beck and Yoshinori Sunahara, Cornelius or Shugo Tokumaru collab would be ace

― MaresNest, Friday, January 17, 2014 11:52 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah, not cornelius, it'd be humiliating. fantasma >>>>>>>>>> beck

I mean, damn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJonU9233Do

um ok wow that^ is incredible

eugene gallagher 3 years ago

i love this song. i sang it w beck at the 94 lalapalooza. very random. ck out my alt country cover of it

After listening to “Morning Phase” almost fifty times, I can’t find a single thing wrong with it. Even if you listen to popular music all day, every day, you don’t get many albums like this in your lifetime.

sasha frere jones done lost his damn mind http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2014/02/17/140217crmu_music_frerejones

lolllll

Do we like this? I'm hearing great things.

i don't think it's as good as sea change. it's very pleasant tho. maybe it'll grow on me.

i like this just fine, it is very much just Sea Change 2 in sound though so if that doesn't qualify as 'more of a good thing' for you then you won't like it

holy @ grey/afro. want a album of THAT SONG.

havent heard it yet but disappointed this turns out to be just Sea Change 2, as the recent standalone singles had a distinctive and novel sound.

Love SFJ for going so unapologetically crazy about this record. I don't hear what he's hearing but good luck to him. It's so unlike the usual New Yorker voice.

Six months from now he is really going to regret writing this review, and the New Yorker are going to regret publishing it. I'd like the usual New Yorker voice back please.

Also, Gordon Lightfoot is not “Los Angeles rock.”

I thought you were all in favour of unbridled passion Marcello? Obviously I wouldn't want this style every week.

Trouble is I don’t hear any passion, bridled or otherwise, on this record. What I do hear are a lot of below par Air Supply and Pablo Cruise tributes. It’s no All Love’s Legal, that’s for sure (they should just give that the Mercury now and have done with it).

assume DL meant sfj's review showed unbridled passion

less gaunt

Beck hasn't gotten crazy enough with the Cheese Whiz in his dotage for some, apparently.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-beck-annie-lennox-grammy-awards-album-sales-bump-20150218-story.html

Answering the Twitter hashtag mystery "#whoisbeck," the veteran indie rocker not only came away from the 2015 Grammy Awards ceremony with the coveted album of the year trophy, but his exposure on the show (and additional media fallout from Kanye West’s photobombing of his moment) helped fuel a whopping 483% increase in sales of his winning album “Morning Phase.”

The album shot from No. 39 a week ago on sales of 12,200 copies to No. 8 as about 71,000 copies were snapped up following the Grammy telecast.
Historically, artists featured in the show’s high-visibility performance slots often fare better than many who actually win awards, but in this case, Beck benefited from taking one of the big four category awards (record, album, song and new artist) and got additional camera time in his joint appearance with Coldplay’s Chris Martin...

Wow that doesn't sound like too many extra sales.

It's 2015, less folks are buying albums and cds

i'm more surprised that 12k ppl bought it the week before to be honest

An increase of 50,000 tho, I wonder how many people watched the Grammys and how much money was spent on it and LOL

This is very heartwarming:

http://www.etonline.com/music/160033_kanye_west_finally_listens_to_beck/

@justinbieber
This @beck album is incredible

well I just received this as a present

why is Beck so sad

the gentrification of silverlake?

forced back into Scientology, had to dump his old GF, hasn't cheered up since Sea Change

the happy party vibes of guero always seemed forced to me (still some jams on it)

Why is his voice auto tuned on this audiophile album?

I liked the Oar cover album a lot, and I have plenty of love for earlier sad Beck but this just sounds so flaccid and mopey, the pace of everything is near glacial, like its goal is to help me take a nap

i remember i used to fall asleep listening to sea change when it came out - i felt that was one of its great attributes!

hey I like naps too

not really what I want/expected from Beck, there's better nap-inducing music out there for me. the industry love for this album is based more on industry politics than anything else bu it's still weird to think that anyone would rate this sleepy fairly generic and hook-free album ALBUM OF THE YEAR I mean waht

was pretty sure the endgame of the whole beck / kanye kerfuffle this year was going to be kanye embracing scientology