'if Odelay sucked...' How Alt-Rock Dealt With Beck In The '90s

This is also the heyday of Songs With Fake Scratches, Vinyl Noise etc

LMAO at the fact the DJ in Sugar Ray was called "DJ Homicide"

songs with fake scratches have seen better days

Did you have music videos directed by "McG" seems to be a secondary identifier for these groups

Showroom of Compassion

Released: January 11, 2011

Genre: Experimental rock, alternative rock, classical, avant-garde

US Billboard 200: #1

(never heard it but what the hell's going on here)

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.

I think I know what this sounds like but what are some examples of this?

There must have been nothing else released on Jan 11, 2011.

I'm trying and failing to find a list of the biggest falls from no. 1 on the Billboard 200 but wiki says its in there.

On the Billboard 200, the album moved 44,000 copies, making it the lowest-selling number-one album since Billboard began using Nielsen SoundScan to track unit sales, until Amos Lee's Mission Bell set the record two weeks later

that list is here, the Cake album is no longer in the top 10:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_200#Biggest_drops_from_number-one

I think I know what this sounds like but what are some examples of this?

I cannot speak to the mismatched reverbs thing but I definitely remember some odd studio choices that seem intended to reinforce a kind of campy pastiche.

Listen to the Decemberists' "July, July!" for a song that was deliberately mixed weird, with the drums panned hard left and the vocals hard right (instead of centering both as I conventional).

Also I am given to understand that Smash Mouth's "All Star" incorporates the James Bond theme, in such a subtle way (lurking in the rhythm guitar track) that you can only hear it if you listen for it (Cf. a Switched on Pop podcast).

xp I KNEW Madame X would be in there.

Sorry, end of this divergence now.

I think of this as an era of songs that have "sexy" sounds but are utterly sex-less while referring to 1960s/70s sexy aesthetic tropes -- and we end up with Lovefool and Your Woman and, ultimately, Midnite Vultures.

Also, Pulp Fiction specifically ushered in a lot of what made Odelay of the moment.

Listen to the Decemberists' "July, July!" for a song that was deliberately mixed weird, with the drums panned hard left and the vocals hard right (instead of centering both as I conventional).

i wonder if this was a retro 60s pop thing, like some of those old Dylan or Beatles stereo mixes where it was just panning stuff hard left and hard right?

Also, Pulp Fiction specifically ushered in a lot of what made Odelay of the moment.

FLC again

I think I know what this sounds like but what are some examples of this?

― intheblanks

Well I think Odelay itself is a very very good & clear example, in terms of the way the "live" instruments and vocals are treated.

That Cornershop record is another, as is 'Fantasma'. 'Every Morning'. But I think all those records incorporate samples. Maybe a better way to say this... A lot of hip-hop productions use reverb to glue different samples together into a mix, to make them cohere, so this is kind of doing the opposite, taking sounds that were recorded in the same space and breaking them apart. In general, Toyoaki Mishima's work on Cornelius records I feel like approaches recording and mixing with a view to splitting things apart & I would name 'Point' as a good example of this that doesn't sample other records.

There's a little known band I have in mind i'll maybe post about later who are maybe the clearest example of like "impact of Odelay on 90's alt rock", including mismatched reverbs.

The connection between Odelay and Smash Mouth doesn't really exist to me

The mid-to-late 90s had a nearly simultaneous ska-fusion moment and a neo-swing moment, coupled with the enormous popularity of Pulp Fiction/Reservoir Dogs OSTs, and like... that movie The Mask, there was this generalised kinda kitsch blip that felt independent of a few of the progenitors suggested in this thread. Smash Mouth, to me, were most influenced by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones etc.

Yeah, I feel like the thread premise is kinda like saying Austin Powers was the bubblegum Pulp Fiction.

One of the worst trends ever and part 352564 why late 90s alt-rock sucked

Some critics really loved to use the word “eclectic” though. “Melting pot” another.

As I recall Beck was "critics and hipsters only" through the 90s; he was seen as a one-hit wonder for "Loser". I doubt that Odelay had much (if any) influence on chart music, beyond Hanson working with Dust Brothers on their debut, and I doubt that decision was "inspired by Odelay" so much as it was just "an inspired decision"

oh man that is not otm, sorry - odelay sold over 3 mil & everyone i knew in suburbia had that cd along with their foo fighters and pearl jam and alanis morissette.

i think the sex crimes or whatever follow-up was the one that lost the radio rock crowd?

midnite vultures

Yeah, the "Where It's At" video was omnipresent on MTV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPfmNxKLDG4

our clearchannel alternative station played the shit out of the odelay singles iirc, can't imagine it being that different on all the other alt format stations at the time. midnight vultures though got crickets and i think beck definitely became disconnected from rock radio after 1995.

i think the sex crimes or whatever follow-up was the one that lost the radio rock crowd?

― ꙮ (map), Thursday, January 19, 2023 5:35 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

midnite vultures

― ꙮ (map), Thursday, January 19, 2023 5:35 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Mutations came out in between, but it has kind of a weird story (Indie project skyjacked by Geffen when they realized a direct follow-up to Odelay wasn't forthcoming...a lawsuit followed).

Midnight Vultures did okay out of the gate, didn't have strong legs as Alternative Radio and MTV in particular were moving on.

major flaw in this thread title is the 'if'

XP...and then moved back a little? He had two Alternative Rock Top 10s in 2005 (including a #1 w/"E-Pro").

2005 was the last time I remember him earning airplay on the college radio station I advise for two singles ("Girl" especially), though "Think I'm in Love" a year later was omnipresent for years on the IR.

Guero was his "commercial comeback" record, right? Reuniting with Dust Brothers, making music that sounds like Odelay, making goofy music videos, etc.

Guero's part of that long tradition of an artist reuniting for another go-round with the people who got him hits and acclaim -- and how much you like it depends on your investment in Beck (It's fine, listen to "Scarecrow" and "Go It Alone," forget the rest).

Scanning the thread, I'm surprised no one's mentioned DJ Shadow except in a quote. Endtroducing... is part of this conversation, no?

Heard Guero for the first time ever three days ago. Missing and Broken Drum are strong.

This was one of my favorite tracks of the 90's contemporaneously. What's happening here is a unique take on a Jon Specncer Blues Explosion style musical collusion born of a trio jamming in a room. And the performances are so antic and over the top- which you could say about JSBX, sure, but here are excerpts of outlandish anti-jams that aren't necessarily very musical. Most of the voices are from dictaphone recordings which are *not at all* candid or ambient, they're very much giving uninhibited, private performances into a tape recorder, goofing around with it, really hamming it up. I think this is a direct influence from Odelay.

Almost every element is manic and cartoonish, but the most striking thing about it is the way these excerpts are edited together in such a novel way and presented as a sequence of fragments with some startlingly musical 'disruptions'. There are precedents in the 60's, like SMiLE or Defecting Grey, which I don't think these guys were listening to at all anyhow. But this is a whole other thing.

I will warn that this contains a snippet of what sounds to me like a mocking impersonation of an Asian accent. I could be wrong, and I wasn't so offended by it in 1998, but it certainly jumps out at me now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d_pQT025fA

Anyway, it was just a b-side that got some press in Melody Maker, but they eventually signed to Roadrunner and did a full album apparently aimed at a mainstream-ish US market. The album was really disappointing in that it felt anonymized and and lacked the fun idiosyncracies and character of the earlier b-side. But it was also stuffed with Odelay-isms and felt very of the moment, which makes it good fodder for this thread. I think this was the college radio single and it's a Jock Jam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5mA8VuKzH4

It does the reverb thing I was talking about, and it's assembled from loops that sometimes seem to have been chosen for the x-factor. It even features a "call out hook" on the chorus similar to Where It's At (Beck performed all the voices on the latter himself in character as different people). Everything about the mix seems designed to emphasize contrast, with big, bold colors that tend towards extremes of bright and dark and little subtlety.

I've got two soup ladles and a wide pine cone

Scanning the thread, I'm surprised no one's mentioned DJ Shadow except in a quote. Endtroducing... is part of this conversation, no?

I don't think so, no. Endtroducing... was instrumental hip-hop as album-length art project. College radio and the music press picked up on it, but it wasn't in conversation with pop, really.

I meant as part of this crate-digging ethos, to which it belongs.

I remember, in college, turning in a snide review (for a nat’l magazine) of an album produced by the Dust Brothers… saying something like: “A few years back, in the grunge era, everyone wanted to work with Butch Vig… now, after Odelay, they’re using the Butch Vig equivalent.” Very insightful!

ha we all have those, thankfully published before the internet

few years back, in the grunge era, everyone wanted to work with Butch Vig… now, after Odelay, they’re using the Butch Vig equivalent

Somewhere there's a (possibly apocryphal) quote about an actor's career having four stages.

1. Who's Jake Gyllenhaal?

2. Get me Jake Gyllenhaal.

3. Get me someone like Jake Gyllenhaal.

4. Who's Jake Gyllenhaal?

Alfred went directly to step two and AFAIK still hasn't left.

I believe in the actress version of that, stage 3 is "Get me a young [name]."

5. Is Jake Gyllenhaal in Alfred's room?

I did a jukebox jury with the Buttholes in 96, right as "pepper" was impacting and in about as informal and relaxed context as you could want for something like that: not so informal and relaxed that they were getting fucked up, but they were listening to what I was playing fairly intently and responding in the moment…and so when Gibby when exposed to some Portastatic recording said things like "it's not enough like Beck," only for a moment did I think he was goofing around, he was absolutely under Becks' spell… and while I don't blame anyone for thinking that "pepper" sucks shit, one thing you cannot say about that song is that the lyrics are non sequitorial: it was also clear to me from his demeanor that he was in recovery and those words in the song are deadly serious and could not mean more to him at the time and most likely in the time since…

booming post. I'm a Pepper-defender & run hot and cold with Beck but "they were all in love with dying, they were doing it in Texas" resonates at a very different frequency from Beck's stuff -- not that he can't also do melancholy melded with absurdism, the early "Heartland Feeling" is a great example of this, but when he does it he tends to hit the ballad reservoir, which Gibby pointedly does not & probably cannot do

he tends to hit the ballad reservoir

We need to protect our nation's strategic ballad reserves.

Some experts suggest that we may run out of ballads in late 2024 unless we dramatically increase ballad production.

I hear self-emoting ballad software is five years away

while I don't blame anyone for thinking that "pepper" sucks shit

i do! its great

Just gave "pepper" a listen on YT. First video in the if-you-like-this recommended bar on the right is "loser" by Beck.

Pepper, Loser, Flagpole Sitta = holy trinity of 90s quasinovelty hits whose titles almost rhyme

I checked Spotify and Odelay is not among Beck's "Popular Releases" nor are any Odelay tracks in his top 10.