Beck: Classic Or Dud

I'm on track 2 and so far this is like a super happy Gotye album.

Actually I guess it's Gotye filtered through Weezer.

Officially not interested in this whatsoever anymore.

I loved his pre-Morning Phase stand-alone singles so I’m curious to hear whether he’s going back to that sound

B should be the next colonel sanders

Giving Colors another spin
Better this time around
“Square one” is pretty good
Even if it sounds nothing like old fun beck

https://i2.wp.com/liveforlivemusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/beck-hyperspace-fbcover.jpg?resize=740%2C390&ssl=1

Hyperspace is the upcoming fourteenth studio album by Beck. It is scheduled to be released through Capitol Records on November 22, 2019. The album was co-produced by Beck with Pharrell Williams.

i was going to do a new thread but was not impressed with Colors. so just bumped a thread instead. glad we got the Beck poll done this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AF_CJhpTzQ

I guess if he did a funky synthwave outrun style album like the cover suggests that would be one thing but I’m not expecting anything remotely interesting

“Slacking off is nil”

"Loser," even now, is such a glory. I can't imagine not wanting to hear it. It stands outside time.

“Midnite vultures” the song came on shuffle today, just a perfect b side. Miss his dada isms. His last good album imho

"Loser," even now, is such a glory. I can't imagine not wanting to hear it. It stands outside time.

Last month, I was reminiscing about pre-COVID life with a few people (basically stuff we did that's the furthest from life right now), and Riot Fest from two years back came up. Beck was a headliner, and what a great set - "Loser" in particular was a highlight.

Another great thing about that set - I learned to appreciate Colors, at least within the context of a show. I didn't like the album, but somehow those numbers were much more enjoyable within the context of older work. What sounded like blatant and uninspired lifts from current artists now sounded like a logical and perfectly acceptable progression from the sampling and musical explorations he had done throughout his career.

Baby’s in Rio with the vitamin D

Reno?

yeah I think it's "Reno"

Dud

Beck's playing Irving Plaza on November 9 - last time he played Irving Plaza was in 1994. (It's about 1,200 capacity - I know he played La Poisson Rouge several years ago but he rarely plays venues this size.)

Pre-sale on Live Nation is tomorrow with the code LYRIC

And dud my ass, CLASSIC

Hyperspace feels equivalent to a $100 million movie that tests poorly in advance and barely gets released. Surprised "Beck + Pharrell" wasn't promoted everywhere, even if the album itself is forgettable.

I only gave it a few listens but it seemed to amplify everything that I found hollow and commercially calculated about Colors. I did enjoy Morning Phase though - wasn't anything new, but it felt like a solid, low-key work. (Weird how it won him an AOTY Grammy but whatever.)

I’d go see a stereopathetic album tour

Morning Phase is his one recent home run

But my favorite Beck is 1994 Beck

I suspect that the man has recorded 10-20 albums that we’ll never hear.

Beck and Bjork are two acts I once enjoyed that for no particular reason I just can't listen to anymore. It's not you, Beck/Bjork, it's me.

I don’t fuck with anything past Mellow

Yeah, I love Mellow Gold and I like One Foot in the Grave quite a bit. Odelay and Sea Change are still my favorites. The only later ones I never got into are his last two (mentioned above) and Modern Guilt.

If The Information had been less than 40 minutes (i.e. had he cut out the chaff weighing down the back end), it would have been his last truly great album IMHO.

I used to dislike Björk's music but grew to like it quite a bit. Go figure.

Don’t go carvin no happy face on my tombstone

The most charming thing about early Beck - when he was bad, he was hilariously bad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-XuMvxi-vc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFe1t5oy984

I’m going to bet he improvised the song on Larry Sanders

“My name’s Ken”

that larry sanders clip is hysterical, never saw that episode that i can remember

he really grossed me out in that thurston interview, how he kept touching the sole of his shoe

But my favorite Beck is 1994 Beck

Beck's classic run was always 1994 to 2002 to me. I enjoy Guero quite a bit (especially if you swap out "Hell Yes" for the 8-Bit remix that was released as an advance single) but it felt like Beck was falling back on proven strengths for the first time rather than trying to develop or expand his reach. Information felt like he got back on track (though again there's like 25 minutes of chaff that I would lop off the back end). But after that, Morning Phase is the only one he's doe that I enjoy and similar to Guero, it does feel like he's falling back on proven strengths. To be fair, it's been, what, 28 years since his first record? It's a tall order to expect another great one at this point.

our Beck poll was not that long ago: I met you...at JC POLLney - ILM Artist Poll #97 - BECK - the Results Thread

FWIW, on iTunes, I see I have the following for The Information:

1. Elevator Music
2. Think I'm In Love
3. Cellphone's Dead
4. Strange Apparition
5. Soldier Jane
6. Nausea
7. New Round
8. Dark Star
9. No Complaints
10. The Information

I’d forgotten how fun that poll was

“New Round” was the standout from The Information for me.

I only unconditionally love 1994 Beck - even though at the time I fooled myself thinking I liked Odelay and Midnite Vultures. After that, there have been a couple of nice things like Sea Change, the Guero singles, or that weird slew of standalone tracks in 2013 (I won't be Long, Gimme, Defriended, Blue Randy) - but overall it all feels like a completely different artist than the one who made Mellow Gold.

I actually liked large parts of Hyperspace way more than I expected to, but I also haven't listened to it since it came out so I guess not enough to return to it often.

i remember thinking at the time that the information was meh beck, but every time i revisit it (which is not that often tbh) i'm overwhelmed by how fucking good it is. just a very solid album.

thought morning phase was great and it rekindled my enthusiasm for his music at the time , but that proved to be fleeting as i've (unintentionally) ignored everything since. i never even checked this out and i rarely see or hear any discussion about it.

Beck's classic run was always 1994 to 2002 to me.

1994-1999 for me.

I'd like to stand up for Modern Guilt and Morning Phase as better "song" records than Mutations and Sea Change. "Volcano" may be my #1 Beck song.

1994-1999 for me.

Same for me, Mutations and Midnite Vultures being my absolute favorites. Though the unpolished chaotic surrealism of the Stereopathic/One Foot era is extra special

Sea Change is still one of my absolute favorites. It can get lumped in with Dylan's Blood on the Tracks for simply being a "heartbreak" album, but like Dylan's album, I thought it went one step further for letting the act or the mask slip off, presenting himself as a sober, down-to-earth human being. It's probably telling that a skeptic like Jim DeRogatis (who knocked his previous work for being too snide) thought it was the first time a Beck album really connected with him.

The nice thing about Mutations and Sea Change (both gorgeous aural landscapes, especially Sea Change) is that you can track down releases that have none of the excessive compression that left the general CD releases sounding so congested, which was especially the case for Sea Change (released at the peak of the "loudness" wars). With the former, it was the promo CD's (perhaps 'unmastered') and with the latter it was Mobile Fidelity's reissue some years back. Getting those was a completely different listening experience, and they sound absolutely beautiful when you fill the room with them.

I prefer masks! Even before COVID!

I prefer "depressed in my mansion" Beck. I don't need masks or personae from him because he's kind of blank even at his most "revealing".

https://frinkiac.com/meme/S07E08/1229944.jpg?b64lines=SG93IGFib3V0IGEgbGl0dGxlIGZyb20KIGNvbHVtbiAiYSIgYW5kIGEgbGl0dGxlIGZyb20KIGNvbHVtbiAiYiI_

I was just about to make a '94 Beck poll and realized that the album tracks alone constitute about 50 songs and it would just be wrong to omit EPs and b-sides and unreleased songs that were later released so I don't even know what to do right now except to concur that '94 was indeed the best of all Beck years.