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

yes!!

I was in this weird lacuna where I pretty much didn't have cable until MTV had already stopped playing music videos. It's like, I saw music videos on network shows like "Friday Night Videos" circa 1984/5. Then a vast blank. The stuff that came after? I saw some of it at friends' houses, or on VHS or DVD or whatever.

Fast forward to 2002, I finally buy a teevee and plump for cable. MTV is already just wall-to-wall reality shows. At that point, one only saw videos on VH1 and its successors. I missed a huge portion of popular culture - not the first and probably not the last. Oh well.

Puffin, that's exactly my experience, every last comma.

Ditto, dudes

Check out Sledgehammer.

I think I've actually only had cable for about two years of my life. Finally got it in around 2010 and it wasn't long after that it became clear that streaming was the way to go. I too have mostly seen the videos that were on Friday Night Videos and am always surprised when I learn that lots of people's experience of a song from the 90s includes the video in a meaningful way -- I don't even know what they look like.

Right now, someone is realizing they didn't see the video of Van Halen's song "Right Now" until way later than it's release.

It's okay because Everybody Hurts, sometimes. Take comfort in VH1 Classic.

*its, gah

My video knowledge ends around 1995, so to me all those electronica videos that did well in the ilm video poll are fake

really fun thread!

i think the key is that "Odelay" as a concept covers several different bases. like first and foremost i think of the general sample- or pseudo-sample-heavy quick-cutting Dust Brothers thing, which leads to the somewhat distinct preoccupation with "collage" and "eclecticism." but then there's a grab-bag of other specific audio and visual signifiers - cowboy shirts, sideburns, late 60s lounge/exotica sonics, general late 60s/early 70s California looks and sounds, old-school hip-hop, continued 90s SoCal slacker chill skater irony, etc. etc.

that is --- each person could hear "Odelay" in connection to 90s alt-rock, focus in on one or more of the particular elements that the album is collaging together, and come to different conclusions, because all those things WERE trends that preceded and exceeded the album. then and now, the album ruled not so much because this combination was such a perfect one, but because it meshes so well with the songs, which were catchy as hell and packed with all these lines that were fun to sing along to.

i remember this feeling that odelay was something that you really needed to like if you wanted to get with the times? like it was the future. a future that lasted for what 3 years? lol.

I keep thinking of Fatboy Slim's singles continuing something similar to the Odelay mix Doctor Casino describes above.

i remember this feeling that odelay was something that you really needed to like if you wanted to get with the times? like it was the future. a future that lasted for what 3 years? lol.

Yeah my impression of Odelay as someone who wasn't there is that it was decided upon by the mainstream music media as a Happening Modern Classic, the sort of thing to be namechecked by ageing artists who wanted to feel they were in the know (this way lies Mick Jagger trying to get the Dust Brothers to produce some of Bridges to Babylon, say).

I am sure you will all be thrilled to hear the theme of Chuck Klosterman's essay about Loser is "so this is what we're doing now."

altho I think of them as late 80s?

BAD had a few minor hits off the first album in 1985, two not-so-noted albums in 86 and 88, a GREAT album in 1989, and then some much bigger international hits off the second album of the second line-up, in 1992.

megatop phoenix best album EVER. the crush collision foxbase alpha.

i remember this feeling that odelay was something that you really needed to like if you wanted to get with the times? like it was the future. a future that lasted for what 3 years? lol.

Core of the thread right here.

i seem to be one of the few who really likes this stuff and was sad that it went away. it kinda reflected the city back at me, the density of it, the business, the textural colors and the cultural diversity, the feeling of being bombarded with ads all the time. i couldn't listen to straight up white bread indie rock.

it's hard to imagine odelay existing without the mtv of that era. i think of bevis and butthead, like, mtv admitting that it sucked. which maybe was something that it had to do to stay fashionable, to not really cop to liking anything. beck's distance and detachment felt like part of that.

i think it works well today. all these inconsequential things pop up and invade your space and grab your attention *FLASH* and then disappear just as suddenly without conveying any meaning.

it's one of the best albs ever made about being seduced by bullshit.

fwiw i never gave a shit about unkle, gorillaz etc i think if you were into this stuff you started virtual crate digging eventually

BAD were for sure a band that while recording for years peaked commercially in America during the Poppy Bush Interzone.

two not-so-noted albums in 86 and 88

ftr, there is some fantastic stuff on No. 10, Upping St.

It's their second best

BAD had a few minor hits off the first album in 1985, two not-so-noted albums in 86 and 88, a GREAT album in 1989, and then some much bigger international hits off the second album of the second line-up, in 1992.

This feels like a hilarious age-related dividing line to me. BAD's debut was brilliant, the second album was almost as brilliant, the third album was very good, and Megatop Phoenix and everything after was watery garbage.

yeah that was my assumption of their career as well

Rush was number one in the UK (sort of), Australia and New Zealand, number one for four weeks and for year-end on Billboard's Modern Rock chart (in 1991, not 1992, apols) and number 1 on Billboard Alternative Airplay. That's a "bigger international hit" than anything off Upping St or Tighten Up, regardless of my age or which of those two albums I personally like a lot.

Oh, they definitely had bigger hits once they started to suck.

i think it works well today. all these inconsequential things pop up and invade your space and grab your attention *FLASH* and then disappear just as suddenly without conveying any meaning.

yeah I listened to Odelay for the first time in years a couple of weeks ago and was surprised by how well it held up (as do all the other 90s beck albums, which I subsequently listened to, then I made it a couple of songs into Sea Change before shutting that off).

It's such a weird and thin line, seems pretty hard to do without it ending up feeling too gimicky.

have checked the whole thread - surely Money Mark deserves to be mentioned ?
the whole junkshop aesthetic was totally MMs thing.
his album 'Push The Button' has a lot of chaotic/junkshop sounds to it a la Odelay.

oh, and dont think this has been dropped in the thread yet.

this is totally a beck rip off :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJxFAoiWSY

^^Both mentioned upthread.

bugger - apologies.
clearly i didn't search properly.

I've been downhearted baby

better than any beck song

My wife tells me that the singer dude (Chris O'Connor) played a solo show at the University of Maryland in I guess 96 or 97, and he exuded arrogance and impatience with the dinkiness of the gig - like, "I'm a national superstar due to my one massive hit, why the fuck am I playing at this lame-ass college student center food court?"

Now he works at that same food court...

the plane takes off from Baltimore, and touches down at Burger King

I thought Primitive Radio Gods was just a one-man band until I checked Wikipedia. Why would they guy think people would automatically know who he is?

have to admit i have always thought PRG = one bloke as well.

I always assumed they were British until right now (lumped them together with The Stereo MCs).

supposedly the album sounds basically unfinished/awful. but americans had to buy it anyway because no retail single was issued for the one song anyone wanted to listen to

RE: one man band, you might be thinking of White Town.

nah, that track had already crossed my mind.

this has finally reminded me of Forest For The Trees, "Dream," which I think was a one-man-band, whose one man had actually co-created "Loser" with Beck, and then recorded this whole album which got shelved for a while. understandably it has more in common with Beck than most of our subjects here. at the least it's kind of like a sped-up "Loser" with some of the same abrupt shifts between sections and more new-agey trappings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHVMdGL0kno

another thought not specifically related to this: surely in a lot of cases of 'influence,' what we're tracking is not necessarily "this artist heard this record and that caused them to start making music of this kind," and more "because this other record was successful, the engineers, producers, and studio people were more willing to release and market the music that this artist was making anyway." or perhaps: "this artist or the producers had this wacky idea in the studio, and instead of dismissing it out of hand, they thought it seemed like a reasonable thing to try, because these other records had shifted the prevailing sense of acceptability in music."

put another way: as under-marketed and commercially doomed as this album was, i'm not sure it comes out at all if Odelay had been a complete flop and Beck deemed a one-hit wonder.

also: the almost completely forgotten POTUS proteges Bicycle, who i keep trying to force upon a totally disinterested ILM: The band: Bicycle. The album: Bicycle.

was surprised by how well it held up (as do all the other 90s beck albums, which I subsequently listened to, then I made it a couple of songs into Sea Change before shutting that off).

lol, otm

also worth mentioning that his tour for this record just absolutely slayed, one of the best/most chaotic & crazy/most joyful/most crowded shows I've ever attended. My girlfriend lost her fucking shoe! total insanity. Beck was using a set of opera glasses to check the audience out, swaggering all around. they did fucking "Debra" for the encore and it brought the house down, then didn't show up on a record for another THREE YEARS. the day after the show there was a record convention and he came to my booth and flipped through my stuff, but the copy of the Pink Panther soundtrack I had wasn't minty enough for him.

like sure they opened with Devil's Haircut and things were bumping, but like 4-5 mindblowing songs later when the crack band tore into the hidden gem "Thunder Peel" the whole place was freaking out

i love stories like that sleeve.
ta.
once again - ilm delivers.

the only beck story i have is that i saw him come out of heathrows departure gate with an insane amount of luggage and his entourage as he was due to appear at a festival that weekend.

reality contradicts my memory, "Thunder Peel" came much later in the set, the freakout moment I remember was probably "Loser"

and thanks mark e <3

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/beck/1997/emu-ballroom-eugene-or-43d12333.html