i like "rode the wave" and Beck may have buoyed the popularity of the style as much as he extended it.
xps
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:27 (one year ago) link
also RHCP
― Motion to adjourn to enjoy a footling (President Keyes), Thursday, January 19, 2023 11:25 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
definitely, RHCP is getting towards that U2 zone where they were so ubiquitous for so long they got way overrated but now we may have overcorrected and their early influence might be underrated
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:30 (one year ago) link
Yeah, Odelay links back to the skatepunk stuff. The Beasties had more of a harcore element for sure and a more aggressive musical style but Odelay still has teeth. The irony, the detachment- there's a toughness about it that's totally missing in the Beta Band or whoever
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:36 (one year ago) link
odelay and beck in general = unmistakably l.a. beastie boys - unmistakably new york.
― ꙮ (map), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:38 (one year ago) link
Beasties had been living in LA since paul's boutique though and did Check Your Head and G-Son studios their rehearsal space/skate ramp place in LA
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:42 (one year ago) link
How so? I always detected some LA-ness about the Beastie Boys xp
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:42 (one year ago) link
Apart from 'why is Curly yelling at me'
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:43 (one year ago) link
I associate the B-movie wah wah funk stuff on CYH and Ill Communication as LA-ish (not that I've ever been, mind).
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:43 (one year ago) link
Fastball’s “The Way” was the first thing that came to mind.
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:44 (one year ago) link
Yeah, that's a good connection. The quasi-John Barry guitar line feels like it's treading on the same ground as the smash mouth tracks mentioned earlier
― intheblanks, Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:47 (one year ago) link
Paul’s boutique also was recorded in Los Angeles even tho for me it’s the ultimate New York City album. Check your head always felt kind of NYC as well, for whatever reason.
― omar little, Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:48 (one year ago) link
Smashmouth do seem very Californian to me but the Beasties put out a comp of instrumentals with the same title and artwork as this, I think pre-Odelay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJQPP6AEnnw
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:48 (one year ago) link
ok fair enough i just mean like.. you hear the beasties and their voices are new york ones. you hear beck and he sounds like a rich l.a. boy. guys i don't really know what i'm talking about at all, just enjoying hate-remembering beck.
― ꙮ (map), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:49 (one year ago) link
Imani Coppola "Legend of a Cowgirl" feels like it was an attempt to recreate "New Pollution"
― intheblanks, Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:49 (one year ago) link
No mention of the (oft shitty) Fun Lovin' Criminals but don't they fit somewhere as well? Not Beck-ish but in that alt-rock/hip hop/cult sampling/pop culture-referencing tent.
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:49 (one year ago) link
you hear the beasties and their voices are new york ones.
yeah def
you hear beck and he sounds like a rich l.a. boy.
i wouldn't know
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:51 (one year ago) link
Add Chuck Prophet to this?
And did we mention
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb6Nl_BB6sU
― everybody was tofu fighting (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:52 (one year ago) link
Can't tell if check your head/ill communication have an "l.a. sound" or if i've simply been fed the beasties' "we bought a studio in LA and broke out our instruments for the first time in years" mythology for so long that it stuck
― intheblanks, Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:54 (one year ago) link
xp the American "Your Woman"
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:54 (one year ago) link
Are you Jimmy Ray?
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:57 (one year ago) link
oh shit you know what song i heard in a grocery store in grand junction, colorado last weekend that i haven't heard in literally over twenty years? mmm mmm mmm mmm by crash test dummies. what a weird and surprisingly good song. connected to a strain of mostly bad 90s radio rock though. the low voiced acoustic thing.
― ꙮ (map), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:57 (one year ago) link
"the way" is a good song
― sault bae (voodoo chili), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:59 (one year ago) link
real life lol
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:59 (one year ago) link
'if Automatic for the People sucked...' How Alt-Rock Dealt...
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 19 January 2023 17:59 (one year ago) link
Not sure if this is relevant to the subject at hand, but I did recently come to the realization that The Offspring's Pretty Fly for a White Guy is basically just Rick Rubin era Run DMC/ Beastie Boys, but with a 90s Californian spin to it.
Also there's even a remix of it by the Dust Brothers, which was among one of the earliest MP3s that I recall downloading.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njRZDwR_ST8
― MarkoP, Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:00 (one year ago) link
Superman never made any money
― everybody was tofu fighting (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:01 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poMw4oko7RI
Basehead was basically Beck a few years before Beck, though not as good.
― Motion to adjourn to enjoy a footling (President Keyes), Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:04 (one year ago) link
Yeah, growing up in Canada I feel like Superman Song was a bigger hit than Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm was, but maybe 6 year old me just took greater notice to a song that was literally about Superman.
Also, two albums after Mmmm Mmmm Mmmmm, Crash Test Dummies would go the route of adding drum loops, rapping, and vague "electronics influences", on their album "Give Yourself a Hand".https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCKoub_8Y48
― MarkoP, Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:06 (one year ago) link
Play with Toys is so good :(
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:07 (one year ago) link
One of the best fluke products of that "something in the air" - How Bizarre
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:09 (one year ago) link
The last time I heard a Crash Test Dummies song it reminded me of middle period Swans — the quieter stuff on Children of God and The Burning World and albums like that.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:13 (one year ago) link
Sorry, I think you misspelled "rather better."
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:15 (one year ago) link
XP now that would be some double bill
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:29 (one year ago) link
later than Odelay but
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVWWl3mcr_w
― everybody was tofu fighting (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:35 (one year ago) link
So I really think the Beta Band are just an example of a rock band that listened to some rap and hip hop and their dynamic is more about channeling elements of anthemic Jock Jams into something more introspective. And maybe the stuff the singer did with less group involvement (like the s/t) is more interesting and holds up better, the debut at its best sounds like DIY Euro hip hop. But there are also beats that sound like Cypress Hill, they copied the Japanese rap from Buhloone Mindstate pretty much verbatim on one of their songs, their funk is the Madchester variety, and the energy on their tracks builds in a more linear way- I get why someone would call them "post-Odelay" because they're combining a bunch of disparate things in a way that calls attention to the disparity. But if there's a traceable lineage to the Grand Royal magazine kind of style it might be an obsession with appearing cool.
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:40 (one year ago) link
Is Luna's Pup Tent post-Odelay?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a8G_cqZMHM
― everybody was tofu fighting (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:46 (one year ago) link
This is probably one of the quintessential releases from that time:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Home_with_the_Groovebox
― Chris L, Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:47 (one year ago) link
I was listening to a recent episode of Time Crisis (Ezra Koenig's radio show), and while discussing early Ween there was a pretty good discussion of 'funny white guy' music of the '90s, on a spectrum from nerdy/dorky/not concerned with appearing cool (eg They Might Be Giants, Phish) ---- to being concerned with cool, or possibly just being cool (Beck, Ween, etc). Maybe Cake is the exact middle?
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 19 January 2023 18:53 (one year ago) link
Only learned recently than TMBG's 'Window' was apparently a goof on Crash Test Dummies and their ilk and suddenly it all makes sensehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_VYHsWzqZI
― PaulTMA, Thursday, 19 January 2023 19:04 (one year ago) link
Feel like Mark's Keyboard Repair had a big influence on acts such as Cornershop, Badly Drawn Boy...goofing around with different genres, fragments of songs etc.
― fetter, Thursday, 19 January 2023 19:13 (one year ago) link
Cake's "The Distance" fits the bill for sure, and though I don't love it, it's honestly aged better than a lot of the class of '96 buzz bin hip-hop dabblers
― intheblanks, Thursday, 19 January 2023 19:55 (one year ago) link
Can we clarify the typology a bit?
Like, is sampling essential? I don't think there are samples in Cake, OK Go, Luna, Smashmouth, Sugar Ray.
And can we usefully distinguish between hip-hop / rap and a general category of speak-singing (Sprechgesang) like the way 1950s ballads would sometimes have a spoken verse.
― everybody was tofu fighting (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 19 January 2023 20:00 (one year ago) link
Good Work Everybody!
Here's some relevant recent discussion: 50 Memorable Songs Of The Late 1990s That Apparently Only You Remember, Even Though They Were Totally On The Radio And Stuff
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 19 January 2023 20:06 (one year ago) link
Cake doesn't have sampling but it does have deadpan white-guy rapping (or "quasi-rapping) and the whistling synths imported from g-funk in a clearly "alternative rock" setting, feels like it fits
― intheblanks, Thursday, 19 January 2023 20:19 (one year ago) link
there's a lot of record scratching even on songs without samples
― Motion to adjourn to enjoy a footling (President Keyes), Thursday, 19 January 2023 20:23 (one year ago) link
The Distance for sure fits. This thread makes me want to see a graph indicating the presence of vibraslap on charting singles from '89 - '99
― feed me with your chips (zchyrs), Thursday, 19 January 2023 20:23 (one year ago) link
And like a lot of stuff on here, it's more contemporaneous with Odelay than part of its immediate influence--The Distance came out like 6 weeks after the Beck record
― intheblanks, Thursday, 19 January 2023 20:34 (one year ago) link
cake is like the rick and morty of alt rock bands (this is a bad thing imo)
― the late great, Thursday, 19 January 2023 20:36 (one year ago) link
Like, is sampling essential? I don't think there are samples in Cake, OK Go, Luna, Smashmouth, Sugar Ray
No, sampling is not an essential criteria, I think if anything the point is more that record production techniques are employed which emulate something of the sound of a sample collage. One I mentioned upthread is mismatching the reverbs on different instruments so that instead of creating an illusion of depth or space, the reverb is there to make everything sound like it came from a different source, to flatten it or to make the production sound more cut up.
At this point even the Smashing Pumpkins had done a couple of things where they're constructing tracks horizontally by looping an extracted bar, rather than doing takes. One difference is they were looking for the tightest bar to loop, not some x-factor.
I wouldn't swear, but my instinct is Sugar Ray used some samples.
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Thursday, 19 January 2023 20:37 (one year ago) link
walkin’ on the sun has a sampled “big beat” (a la fatboy slim or any number of wall of sound artists)
― the late great, Thursday, 19 January 2023 20:40 (one year ago) link