Beck Albums Poll

After this we should do a Mellow Gold poll. Searched the archives and was surprised there wasn't one

Voted Mellow Gold. The deep cuts on here are still amazing and I look forward to ardently defending "Whiskeyclone Hotel City" and "Steal My Body Home" to you nutters at a later date

Beck feels like a pretty empty vessel to me these days but Mellow Gold/One Foot In the Grave/Odelay/Mutations are great. I somehow kinda associate him with other musical weirdos who got annoying (like The Flaming Lips), though he is a lot better.

It is pretty easy to see why Beck is still popular as his sound with mixing everything into the blender sonically fits in pretty well with the laptop band stuff going on now. He's always had two musical faces, one is a fairly serious singer songwriter type and the other is the musical libertine jokester. Discography wise, it's kinda cool that he has both party albums and some more laid back acoustic/folk records. He is good at both things. Couple of the albums mix it up.

Haven't heard anything past The Information other than on the radio. I got Guero and The Information a year or so ago out of the cheap bin and like them ok, but they were not as immediate as some of his earlier records. Never heard Golden Feelings but have had the rest since they were new.

I probably lean to

the earlier records as those things was just a soundtrack to my mid to late 20s. Beck was one of those artists that all types of people dug and would listen too.

odelay is the best
mellow gold is classic
mutations is aight
earlier stuff is cool
the rest can gth

She looks so Israeli

Odelay is the only one I like all the way through these days but most of his albums have at least one really good song. Odd that he hasn't had a best of at any point, that would probably be a good record.

I somehow kinda associate him with other musical weirdos who got annoying (like The Flaming Lips), though he is a lot better.

― omar little, Thursday, March 22, 2018 3:29 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Flaming Lips have one album that's legit (Transmissions, if you need a side of specificity with your challops) and a handful that are okay and they don't come within spittin' distance of prime-era Beck.

I associated him at the time with like Grand Royal style "alternative" music

Flaming lips have the worst singer ever

flaming lips legit album is clouds taste metallic obv ffs

Nahhhh. I'll give them props for the spectacle of Zaireeka, which everyone should experience once with a handful of friends, but it's no great shakes divorced from that experience.

everything the flaming lips released in the 90s was amazing. outside of that decade, not so much, though there are some good things here and there.

Beck's non-album work of the last seven or eight years is my favorite of his work, way more than any of his albums (which I sorta fell off following somewhere after 'Sea Change').

https://www.soundcloud.com/dunvagenmusic/nyc-73-78

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO9nZp8tijE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvDy3Gi8k2s

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL344D578F844FB6DF

Mellow Gold takes this. Still love that album.

I like pretty much everything the Flaming Lips did up through Transmissions (their masterpiece, imo) and very little after that point. Other favorites include Hear It Is, In a Priest Driven Ambulance and Hit to Death in the Future Head. This despite Wayne Coyne being, yeah, an obstacle.

Flaming lips have more than one legit album - clouds taste metallic for example. Or in a priest driven ambulance. What The fucks going on here

They probably have the makings of a legit compilation of random tracks from their less-than-legit albums, sure. But this is not the place.

Odelay just over Mutations. The latter is probably more cleanly recommendable, just a great collection of songs, sounding great, but I lived in the former, I know and love every one of its little moves. Strong contender for being the CD I played the greatest number of times in the late 90s.

soundslike otm

don't forget harry partch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5xhpIFxi7M

Sea Change and Morning Phase are beautiful and awesome, but his other, earlier mode is still much better (and 100x better live). There are tracks in his acoustic mode that are similar to River Man. Otherwise, Nick Drake is a pretty lazy comparison.

I voted Odelay but in my heart I voted One Foot In The Grave

Odelay was a disappointment because my pressing was weird and crackly, I've never trusted 180gm vinyl since (and had never heard of it before), voted One Foot In The Grave with my finger

his alleged first TV appearance ever, in Australia 1994 with pre-scieno band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j44QKz10Dyk

Going to add Beck to our artists poll queue. If no one else wants to run it, I will do it and bump it up in the queue. Meaning, it will cone up sooner rather than later.

Beck is an artist that was such a part of my formative years in high school w music that I find it hard to be too objective now. Odelay sounded fresh to me in highschool and mutations ruled my life. Dead weight is great too

Flaming Lips have one album that's legit (Transmissions, if you need a side of specificity with your challops) and a handful that are okay and they don't come within spittin' distance of prime-era Beck.

― Toilet Paper Tube Bracelets -- Super Hero Themed? (Old Lunch), Thursday, March 22, 2018 3:17 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well i did say he is a lot better! i can't even listen to the Flaming Lips these days. i'd probably buy some Beck albums if I saw them on CD, my kid would love them.

Odley or Sea Change for me, but I do listen to Modern Guilt quite a bit since its such a tight little album.

tough call between Mellow Gold and Midnite Vultures, went with the latter. One Foot In The Grave is pretty great as well.

modern guilt is some solid b-tier beck

Voted Midnite Vultures cos it's one of the most straight-up fun albums I've ever heard, the production is deliciously meticulous.

is Colors any good? i know the three singles from it and they are not bad at all. not really my cup of tea these days but is the album strong?

The title track gives me pleasure when I hear it on rotation at my college station.

I heard it nearly front to back at a record store a few months back and it sounded almost impossibly pedestrian

Come on motherfucker, put your clothes on!

It's a nothing, dependent on the chorus mixing board tricks.

"midnite vultures" was a great 00s album bridge in college for music and comedy people to bond over. "Norman Schwartzkoff/Something tells me you want to go home" was a line I remember being uttered to passed out friends at parties.

Mutations is still my overall fave but, shameful as this fact is, Midnite Vultures was indispensable for teaching my 14/15-year-old-brain how to enjoy music that wasn't guitar-centric.

Vultures is one of the most DGAF fun albums ever.

it pulls off a neat trick where it actually sounds fun and not just labored, even though it was very obviously extremely labored

Did I read somewhere long ago that it was built from the drums up? That’s how I hear it at least

Sounds about right.

I do think the middle stretch ("Hollywood Freaks" -> "Broken Train") does basically suck though

disagree, that run includes "Peaches & Cream" which will make my Top 25 Beck songs.

ugh no it's such a slog

I do think the middle stretch ("Hollywood Freaks" -> "Broken Train") does basically suck though

― Simon H., Saturday, March 24, 2018 12:

WHAT???

automatic bazootie etc

I think the avalanches are the worthy and proper successors to beck

Or to the dust brothers

These poll options = the soundtrack to the Church of Scientology barbecue.

Yeah Dust Bros would work too

This is actually really hard, in the end I had to vote for Mutations. You don't think of Beck in these type of terms but the music actually ends up being classic.