https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMAfKo65nng
― Pierre Delecto, Friday, 20 January 2023 20:42 (one year ago) link
Music trends flowed in and out of style so quickly for so long. My brain couldn't handle understanding it before '88 but from them until probably 2006 it felt like the landscape was entirely flipped on its head every 3 years. This slowed throughout the 2000s and now it's more like every 7 years if we're lucky. The large number of seemingly fresh styles that were considered hip by '94-97 was so expansive that an album like Odelay was bound to arrive and react to the absurdity of it all.
IMO Its influence on charting music and radio hits seems a bit exaggerated throughout this thread. A lot of the stuff listed was released around the same time -- "Pepper" was definitely inspired by Mellow Gold, "Natural One" was a year earlier and likely reacting to Grand Royal. Aside from the vocals, Primitive Radio Gods almost feels like it could have been track 1 on Pure Moods 2. Sonic Youth, Luscious Jackson, and yea definitely JSBX were a part of this era for sure, but this was all before Odelay was released.
Odelay-style hits had already been happening, and the album feels more like the "lock thread" of this era than a signal of what followed, where anything cool about this moment was entirely drained in favor of McG and bowling shirts. It's a cool album that might have inspired lots of very uncool hits and non-hits - the worst of them might have been Better Than Ezra's "Extraordinary" (2001).
So I think this is "How Alt-Rock dealt with Beck." And I stand by my assessment that Smash Mouth sounds like watered down Beck, especially the dude's vocal melodies. But overall I think these hits were more a reaction to this weird era and not so much one album or artist.
― billstevejim, Friday, 20 January 2023 22:00 (one year ago) link
I love Pepper but will forever associate it with a solo 10 hour drive where that and Macarena were the only two songs on every single radio station.
― joygoat, Friday, 20 January 2023 23:10 (one year ago) link
Mellow gold > Odelay
― calstars, Friday, 20 January 2023 23:25 (one year ago) link
Other eclectic albums you highly anticipated if you were a Beck/Beasties fan around this time:UNKLE - Psyence FictionHandsome Boy Modeling School - So... How's Your Girl? Deltron 3030
Eventually Gorillaz took over this niche.
― Chris L, Friday, 20 January 2023 23:39 (one year ago) link
Some really good posts here – though I think some of the stuff being cited above was influenced more by trip-hop and the general “electronica” trend than by Beck, Beasties, etc.
― Vexatious litigant (morrisp), Saturday, 21 January 2023 00:06 (one year ago) link
Very otm
― intheblanks, Saturday, 21 January 2023 00:18 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwBjhBL9G6U
― The Myth of Sisyspacek (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 21 January 2023 00:56 (one year ago) link
MC Paul Barman
― George Santos' If I Could Only Remember My Name - C or D? (President Keyes), Saturday, 21 January 2023 01:47 (one year ago) link
liked the first Gorillaz album fine at the time but I'm still super mystified by this.
― maf you one two (maffew12), Saturday, 21 January 2023 02:13 (one year ago) link
Mainly in how the niche hasn't been hollowed out. The #229 biggest artist on Spotify. But seeing how "Feel Good Inc" (2005) is head and shoulders over everything else, I guess that tells you most of the listeners are pushing middle age. Or /r/vinyl dudes or... i dunno. zzz
― maf you one two (maffew12), Saturday, 21 January 2023 02:21 (one year ago) link
I was thinking of Gorillaz yesterday when listing UK bands but stopped short of the 2000s.
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Saturday, 21 January 2023 02:28 (one year ago) link
I tend to think the whole "stereolab-tortoise" axis feels bracketed off from this--different reference points, even if ultimately a lot of the methodology is the same
― intheblanks, Saturday, 21 January 2023 02:37 (one year ago) link
I deeply love that stuff, but I realize it's easy to tag it as the stilted, academic version of the beck-a-likes
― intheblanks, Saturday, 21 January 2023 02:39 (one year ago) link
There’s also the whole Dub Narcotic/K Records axis that intersects some of this on the indier side of things…
― Vexatious litigant (morrisp), Saturday, 21 January 2023 02:55 (one year ago) link
tonight I remembered the existence of Dub Narcotic Sound System
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Saturday, 21 January 2023 08:54 (one year ago) link
Lots of SPIN/MTV2 rotation was influenced by Tricky or Portishead or whatever, but not the VH1 landfill.
― billstevejim, Saturday, 21 January 2023 15:27 (one year ago) link
I'm guessing Sneaker Pimps earned more rotation than either.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 21 January 2023 15:30 (one year ago) link
Sure but again their most popular songs came out around the same time as Odelay.
― billstevejim, Saturday, 21 January 2023 15:33 (one year ago) link
so basicallyGrand royalTrip hopacoustic guitars
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Saturday, 21 January 2023 19:16 (one year ago) link
add in Euro-sleaze and fake plastic grunge, and Whale nailed the blend in '95... ;-)
― Vexatious litigant (morrisp), Saturday, 21 January 2023 21:41 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ALHOT-UbhoMy sense of the timing of these things is a little off, but I always thought this Royal Trux song from '94 was a gnarled take on Beck, but apparently it was recorded months before Mellow Gold was released. Guess it was just their riff on hip-hop, though.
― InternationalWaters, Saturday, 21 January 2023 22:15 (one year ago) link
Yeah, recorded like six months earlier…
― Vexatious litigant (morrisp), Saturday, 21 January 2023 22:26 (one year ago) link
Here's a snippet of a 1998 interview (by Jay Ruttenberg!):
I have to ask them about my favorite Royal Trux song, 1994’s "Shockwave Rider." (...) It’s incredibly accessible: if Beck had recorded the number two years later and supported it with a Spike Jonze–directed video starring a white convertible and some Nevada desert, it would have gone triple-platinum. I mention this to the twosome and they snicker at me."That shit’s fuckin’ weak, man," says Hagerty. "Using samples is lame. It’s imperialism. We just did ‘Shockwave Rider’ to show that ‘Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we know the whole routine, this is how it’s done.’ Just to check in and punch the ticket—‘look, we know how to do this and we can do it really well—but we’re making these other kind of records.’"Part of what we do is illustrate restraint," continues the proudly ascetic man who refuses to fly. "It’s like: we can clone human beings now, but we don’t. Until now, has man ever discovered something and said, ‘Wait a minute, we don’t want to go down that road’?"
"That shit’s fuckin’ weak, man," says Hagerty. "Using samples is lame. It’s imperialism. We just did ‘Shockwave Rider’ to show that ‘Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we know the whole routine, this is how it’s done.’ Just to check in and punch the ticket—‘look, we know how to do this and we can do it really well—but we’re making these other kind of records.’
"Part of what we do is illustrate restraint," continues the proudly ascetic man who refuses to fly. "It’s like: we can clone human beings now, but we don’t. Until now, has man ever discovered something and said, ‘Wait a minute, we don’t want to go down that road’?"
― Vexatious litigant (morrisp), Saturday, 21 January 2023 23:07 (one year ago) link
ctrl-f "Are you Jimmy Ray?" found!
― kurt schwitterz, Saturday, 21 January 2023 23:23 (one year ago) link
Odelay release date: June 18, 1996
Electriclarryland release date: May 6, 1996
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Sunday, 22 January 2023 08:58 (one year ago) link
Yeah "Pepper" is sarcastic Mellow Gold. The one-chord drone. Gibby said they purposely put the backwards singing in the same place as in "Loser."
― billstevejim, Sunday, 22 January 2023 17:34 (one year ago) link
I don't think I've ever noticed that bit is backwards.
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Monday, 23 January 2023 04:37 (one year ago) link
Ohh ohh the Beasties have been mentioned plenty but as far as "post-Odelay" specifically goes that's Song for the Man all over imo
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Monday, 23 January 2023 05:04 (one year ago) link
Am I wrong in seeing some Pop Will Eat Itself in some of this or are they off to the side?
― husked, tonal wails (irrational), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 15:42 (one year ago) link
PWEI did not have much of an impact on the US apart from a minor hit for “Ich Bin Ein Auslander”. But PWEI are a great precursor to all this.
― Lord Pickles (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 15:54 (one year ago) link
"Can U Dig It" was played a lot on 120 Minutes
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 16:06 (one year ago) link
Yeah, but what reach into the the musical mainstream/cultural gestalt did 120 Minutes have? Genuinely asking.
― Alicia Silver Stone (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 17:32 (one year ago) link
It was pretty much where you heard alt-music if you didn't live in a big city.
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 17:34 (one year ago) link
I only ask cause that was me in a small exurb watching 120 minutes in 1989
― Alicia Silver Stone (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 18:34 (one year ago) link
there was definitely a while there where 120M was THE subcultural thing, like a US version of the John Peel show
― sleeve, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 18:46 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTG7_YOFqQE
I lived in a small farm town and bought Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine because of 120 Minutes that has to count for something
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 18:54 (one year ago) link
Oh yeah and Urban Dance Squad probably figures in this
I liked "A Deeper Shade of Soul," but that was so early... other than just being another example of a '90s rock/hip-hop hybrid, I don't see it playing into the post–Odelay alt-rock era.
― Vexatious litigant (morrisp), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 19:07 (one year ago) link
Urban Dance Squad or Big Audio Dynamite would be on a Billboard chart called like "World Groove."
― Chris L, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 19:46 (one year ago) link
BAD had multiple #1s on the Modern Rock chart
― some dude, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 20:30 (one year ago) link
I thought about bring up BAD but feel like they are missing the weird ironic distance the beck et all stuff had.
― husked, tonal wails (irrational), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 21:22 (one year ago) link
― sleeve, Tuesday, January 24, 2023 12:46 PM (two hours ago)
my friends and i would tape it and watch over and over and over. it was a major source of musical discovery! i had a PWEI tape and only have one memory of listening to it, not very good iircmy friends were more into BAD than I was. that stuff was a little corny for me ?
― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 21:43 (one year ago) link
to clarify though that was mostly early early 90s -- by the time Beck came around I wasn't watching/taping anymore so the post-Odelay landscape is something i only know from osmosis, not because I liked the music much or was looking to discover anything that sounded like that
― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 21:47 (one year ago) link
I love both BAD and PWEI to bits. But their late 90s descendants are more Campag Velocet or Lo-Fidelity Allstars or Earl Brutus. With early Apollo 440 (Astral America era) or Senser as the bridge between them.
― you can see me from westbury white horse, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 21:47 (one year ago) link
120 Minutes is where I saw this (speaking of hip hop influence)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAl-xzN8e-M
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 21:48 (one year ago) link
irrational otm, I don't hear a lot of Beckian ironic detachment in BAD
― is it milli vanilli or just a facsimile (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 21:52 (one year ago) link
ok i went back and listened to the two BAD songs i remember -- they were fun. still a little corny but in a way i can enjoy now that i am decades beyond being a depressed teen.
― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Tuesday, 24 January 2023 21:57 (one year ago) link
I associate BAD more with Is there a name for that genre of turn-of-the-90s pop-rock with the positive vibes, huge guitar leads, and gated drums?
― jaymc, Tuesday, 24 January 2023 22:13 (one year ago) link