Cause when our POLL did meet, Girl you know I was packin' heat! - ILM Artist Poll #97 - BECK (Voting is open until Saturday, June 1, 2019)

it has everything

god the b-side would-be title track is so good, criminal it got left off

did not completely understand whiney's "canceled" comment until i remembered what "hollywood freaks" is like

― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, May 24, 2019 8:24 AM (fifty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I still don't quite get why this song is significantly more objectionable than most of what he was recording around this time. is there something to it beyond cultural appropriation/playing black culture for laffs? which I don't personally put much stock in, I feel like Beck's homage/pastiche is generally fond and not cheap.

a specifically g-funk pastiche sits weird with me, i'll have to think about it more

It's kind of forgotten now, but according to Beck, he claimed* that prior to the Dust Bros. sessions, he actually had recorded another album of what he described as guitar rock songs (of which, I think only "Minus" was released), but elected to not release it as he felt that style was passe`.

Thats interesting, I read a similar story once but with a different style -- that he initially wanted to follow Mellow Gold with a serious downer singer-songwriter album and recorded "Ramshackle" and eventual b-sides "Feather In Your Cap" and "Brother" in those sessions, before changing his mind and hooking up with the Dust Brothers.

It's easy to imagine him after Mellow Gold, having had this major breakout success and all this youthful energy, being so interested in so many different sounds and styles and being fairly effortless at achieving them, it must have seemed like an impossible task trying to decide where to go musically. I read an interview once where he said that a few label execs told him Odelay was a career-ending mistake and it really shook him, but it was too late to change anything. He must have had some serious anxiety of influence around then.

He must have had some serious entitlement feelings after then.

https://www.discogs.com/label/688022-Not-On-Label-Beck-Self-released

Here's a pile of Beck cassettes that are impossible to find/hear/buy.

I have a few of those if anyone wants a YSI, just PM me and leave yr email

Same -- Lazy Flies is all-time for me, partly because of the vocab (magistrate, debris, mangroves, sulphur, trawlers, opiates, syphilis, matrons, gigolos) but also because of whatever Waronker is doing in the second half.

― orifex, Friday, 24 May 2019 05:52 (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this will be very high on mine too

Thats interesting, I read a similar story once but with a different style -- that he initially wanted to follow Mellow Gold with a serious downer singer-songwriter album and recorded "Ramshackle" and eventual b-sides "Feather In Your Cap" and "Brother" in those sessions, before changing his mind and hooking up with the Dust Brothers.

That's why I added the asterisk, I hadn't heard about that album until yesterday, after having lived w/the thought of the rock album for years. It might just be down to the story Beck felt like telling that day, as there's more evidence of the acoustic record existing.

That said, what is the deal w/"Minus"--different sound & producers than the rest of Odelay.

tbh I think its likely that both stories are true - mellow gold is such a scattershot of styles, its easy to imagine him trying out different sessions trying to decide between "Blackhole", "Loser", or "Mutherfuker".

"Minus" is a weird track for sure. I like it on Odelay but not sure if I could hang with a whole album of that.

wow so it turns out mutations is an extremely amazing record, "lazy flies" will also be high on my ballot but i could vote for almost all of it

gonna re-listen to that one tonight

'Minus' really is the odd one out on Odelay. Always felt like he thought the album needed a 'Mutherfuker pt 2'.

Since "Hollywood Freaks" has come up, I found this from the NME in 2000 last night looking for Beck's oft-told P.Diddy story:

Beck also revealed the truth about his failed attempt at collaborating with Puff Daddy, and that the hip-hop star now snubs him.

“He was pursuing me heavily,” Beck said. “He basically came out on my tour and followed me around and then got me into the studio late one night and I threw down some awful vocals over some Elton John track with a hip-hop beat, and I was singing something about how expensive my hormones were, and it didn’t connect, and I never heard from him again. I’ve seen him at awards shows, he shook my hand once, and otherwise I didn’t really exist any more.

“It was like he was pursuing me and he had me, and I was discarded. I’m trying to get over it. But actually some of the tracks on my last album were from after that experience, I was inspired to write some songs, like what if that Puff Daddy track had worked out? ‘Hollywood Freaks’ was my fantasy of what Puff Daddy would do. That’s the kind of track I’d like to hear him do.”

cracked beatlesesque psychedelia achieved through really spare homespun-sounding instrumentation that's also beautifully layered, the arrangement of every song seems to ripple outward as it goes (i find it kind of funny that the nigel godrich paul mccartney record chaos and creation in the backyard is kinda... mutations 2)

I ride hard for "Sing It Again" off Mutations, especially that guitar solo - not sure if its Beck or Smokey Hormel playing it, but even 20 years later when I listen to that album and it gets to that part it feels like a total showstopper, espec with the simple acoustic arrangement and live feel of the recording after all the harpsichord and tropicalia and Godrich keyboards and etc that come before it. One of the great end-of-album comedown songs. Like I said upthread, I would kill for an album's worth of no-frills acoustic country like that from Beck, but its probably not to be.

yeah, beautiful song.

Weirdly I think "We Live Again" was my Beck gateway song. Heard it on a Mojo comp or something?

I think one of the main reasons Mutations is my favorite is that it's somehow much more successfully/convincingly aching than Sea Change turned out to be, without sacrificing any of the lyrical eccentricity of that period

otm

(if all of Sea Change vanished besides "Guess I'm Doing Fine" and "Paper Tiger" I'd be fine with that)

Sunday Sun is great but otherwise... The album served its purpose for me once but ive no need for it anymore really

For me, part of why I prefer Mutations to Sea Change is the change in his vocal style that came with Sea Change. He started singing differently and seemed interested in becoming a "good" singer in a way that changes the way a lot of that kind of material comes across in a big way, imho (not for the better).

But also compared to Mutations, Sea Change just seems like a louder record, which makes it less appealing as a late night listen. Like I can put on Mutations at home late at night and it sounds really right, but if I did that with Sea Change, before "Lonesome Tears" is over I'd be getting a call from my neighbors I'd imagine.

"Little One" on Sea Change is awesome (and also iirc a vintage copyright).

oh yeah "Little One" is nice, I like the grungy vocal line on the verse

tbf Lonesome Tears is the one I'll be voting for highest off Sea Change

I doubt I'll have room for anything off of that one

I think one of the main reasons Mutations is my favorite is that it's somehow much more successfully/convincingly aching than Sea Change turned out to be, without sacrificing any of the lyrical eccentricity of that period

― Simon H., Friday, May 24, 2019

until recently I couldn't explain to people who loved Sea Change why they were wrong and Mutations did it better. Like I wrote this morning, in 1998 sounds and arrangements still interested him; they bespoke the "sincerity" with which the SC lyrics dripped.

i think the songs on sea change, individually, at a songwriting level, are good-to-great. but all of them smushed together? with those arrangements? yikes

it’s like trawling at the bottom of a single shitty feeling

yep

which is why it sounds great when you're a teenager and a drag afterwards

o t m

It never sounded good -- worse, it sounded like an old man wit the maturity of a teen

i have some ballots, getting very excited about this poll. yes, i will be sending out confirmation emails starting next week. none have been sent out yet.

and this is the best thing i have ever seen in my life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwXeCuhEch8&list=RDYwXeCuhEch8&start_radio=1

let's try that again
https://youtube/YwXeCuhEch8

one last time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwXeCuhEch8

LOL @ him hugging the band at the end

haven't much enjoyed beck since i went through a huge phase in high school (round guero times), but i'm definitely considering submitting a one-song ballot with Debra

is frontin on debra eligible?

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

i won't reject anything.

but did make it a minimum of five songs...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyCkhPTU13w

Ugh, I hate Debra

It is amazing to me that he was SO YOUNG when he made all this stuff, wow. I remember the interminable time it took between Odelay and the (rumoured) Midnite Vultures (with the stop-gap Mutations in the middle) and it was... three years? Between age 26-29 for the dude? Wow.

i don't really get why debra is so polarising? it's a solid enough slow jam pastiche, but nothing more or less

Yeah he had a turbocharged few years of brilliance and really only a few glimpses of goodness since then. It happens! xp

Sessions At W.54th was such a great show. Saturday nights with ACL and it were formative for me.

Here's the whole segment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ8AsbddEN4

It's bound to be a licensing nightmare, but I really wish PBS could create an HD channel that's just reruns of their vintage music shows (ACL, Sessions..., Soundstage, Live From The Artist's ?Den etc.).

I mean, look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessions_at_West_54th#Episode_list

as far as his 00s material goes, Sea Change is quite good and i probably like it more than most here do, but i agree with Brad upthread that it's a bit too much overall. the best tracks are excellent and the first side is especially solid but it could easily lose say two tracks somewhere because it's almost suffocatingly dreary. "the golden age" and "lost cause" are lovely tunes and i love the strings on "paper tiger" and "lonesome tears"

Guero and The Information are both pretty boring and are the most 'Beck-by-numbers' he's ever been. a lot of the tracks on both albums will come up with a nice groove from the rhythm section but then won't have anything else going for them at all. the maximalist collage approach from Odelay and Midnite Vultures is gone, leaving both feeling a bit empty. The Information especially is so bloated too, there's probably an decent (if unexciting) album amongst its tracklist but it really didn't need to be an hour.

Modern Guilt is kinda nice though, it's short and breezy with psych-pop tinges and a fair bit stronger than the previous two. it's not really on par with his peak period from the 90s but i'd be very happy with more Beck albums of similar quality.