Beck: Classic Or Dud

Mutations is up there with Mellow Gold as his best imo, it would be EASILY his best if it kept up the quality of the first 3-5 tracks and the bonuses (I often think of the first three as his great Achievement, as we're on the subject of great chords, Lazy Flies has fucking ascended chords)

First side of Midnite Vultures works best for me, whereas after Peaches & Cream I lose interest a bit.

Still my fav album of his tho

b b but Milk & Honey!

Squirreled away somewhere I have a rip of a Mutations Promo CD that was doing the rounds and that has slightly different mixes and extended versions of a few tracks, I can dig it out if anyone would like to hear it.

would love that!

he had some fun free-CD promo discs around then. clearly remember Clock/The Little Drum Machine Boy being a blast

b b but Milk & Honey!

(I also like Pressure Zone and have time for Debra although hmm it's one of those should I, well I guess I have now things isn't it)

I don’t really rate Sexx Laws hugely besides the “I’m a full grown man, but I’m not afraid to cryyyyyyyy” end line which I used to do a great impression of in school (but now it’s gone!). Debra is also very good.

Mutations (promo) - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/75edybsj27alzebvd57u0/h?dl=0&rlkey=5g33p4z2l46ioez2vl6oxbch6

https://i.imgur.com/qifM1e1.jpg

Guys this new beck album is so good

wow thanks Maresnest

"Clock" does indeed rule, forgot that in my list

you guys are gonna make me revisit mutations again, aren't you? let us not forget nigel "I JUST MADE OK COMPUTER!!!" godrich is around and about for those sessions as well.

i know i've posted it before but i'm nothing if not consistently redundant, so i want everyone to go listen to "one of these days", which was the b-side for "cold brains." ahh... dreamy beck is my favorite!

also the 2013 singles!!! "i won't be long" is such a damn fine groove. the 10+ minute versions are kind lolzy but still very fun every so often.

(also yeah, the information is an album i hardly ever get the urge to listen to — but when i do! it's such an impenetrable, oddly catchy mashup of funky beats and sci-fi anxiety. i think he only sounded more convincingly paranoid on modern guilt [which is good, but inconsistent]. anyway i highly recommend revisiting if you haven't jammed it in a while.)

stereopathic / one foot = 3.5
mellow gold = 4.5
odelay! = 4.5
mutations = 5
midnite vultures = 3
sea change = 4.5
guero = 4
the information = 4
modern guilt = 3
morning phase = 3

haven't heard anything past that. in time!

stereopathic / one foot = 3.5
mellow gold = 4.5
odelay! = 4.5
mutations = 5
midnite vultures = 3
sea change = 4.5
guero = 4
the information = 4
modern guilt = 3
morning phase = 3

Pretty much my ratings too, though I'd probably round up the 4.5's to 5's.
(That may be just me - I have a tough time rating anything 4.5. Like once it clears that "4" threshhold by a solid margin, it's essentially a great album to me, i.e. a 5.)

FWIW, the promo of Odelay is worth tracking down. It's kind of like the "director's cut" of the album, with no brickwall compression and a few samples they couldn't clear - now when I hear the released version, it feels like there's a hole in those spots.

whaaaat

FWIW, I want to say Beck is kind of where Bowie was at in the mid '80s. His stretch of greatness seems behind him and he's consciously making more commercial records that aren't as interesting and don't add much if anything to his legacy. I hope he has it in him to surprise us with a late-career comeback.

he has no Tonights in his catalog though

also thank you mares that is a completely rad thing to share!!

(just now finishing up "diamond bullocks" on my revisit to the proper release and... big sigh. that mellotron outro. just... oh yeah.)

i now remember why i have such a hard time getting all the way through the information: i always get to "think i'm in love" and hit repeat. was that a single? serious business.

I wanna hear the Odelay promo, now! And thank you MaresNest

I can't rate Beck albums, they're all so different. Odelay and Mellow Gold are 10/10s for me though

His bassist really is god's gift to the instrument!! I haven't heard a Beck song with anything less than a classic bassline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Meldal-Johnsen

this is an astonishing credits list

best rock producer atm

Lost track of Beck after Guero but my daughter is a big fan; last summer she went with a pal to see him at Brixton, her first proper rock gig. Maybe I should ask her for her ratings on all the LPs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWeln4AYzTQ

Trigger warning, contains Jack Conte

Jesus Christ what a credits list for Justin Meldal-Johnsen; he'd never been anything other than "a name I'd read sometimes"

Reading that list had me googling some things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWahO6rIW6s

This is the result

Please enjoy it haha I've never heard it before and it's great

I mentioned that song earlier!!!! it's great yes

Ok, the 18yo has given me her ratings, be nice.

mellow gold 4
Odelay 5
Mutations 4.5
Midnite vultures 5
Sea change 3
Guero 4.5
The Information 2
Modern guilt 4
Morning Phase 3.5
Colors 3
Hyperspace 3.5

“Stereopathetic soulmanure and one foot in the grave I haven’t heard enough of”

I managed to avoid saying I Don’t Belieeeeve It like I do every time she mentions that last one, hope you’re proud of me.

daughter otm

how have I never heard "The Little Drum Machine Boy" before?!?!?!

Here are two cuts from the Odelay promo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts3kkEdpz0A

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

holy moly @ that Novacane version, love it

Yes, daughter otm, though I enjoy The Information more than a 2 and Midnite Vultures less than a 5

I can't discern any difference between Novocane (promo version) and Novocane (album version) but man what a perfect song

The jam at 3:45 onward is so great. iirc doesn't it reprise on "Hi-5" and somebody yells "turn that shit off, man!" hahahaha

there's this high pitched melody/sound thing riding over the main riff? idk

JMJ is a lifelong scientologist and his parents are very high level scinos.

and it's weird in like every interview he has a different story about how him and beck met instead of just saying "we grew up in scientology together" theres shady shit goin on there

i saw the performance of the new single and yeah, what a snoozer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA3WkCpABYo

also he looks older for maybe the first time here. he's not TOOM yet but he did get get dylan's oh mercy era leather jacket
also, i don't know the band Phoenix well enough to recognize them, and kimmel's intro was ambiguous - is phoenix his backing band or are they opening for him on tour?

he's doing a co-headlining tour with phoenix

XP They're co-headling, no?

That should be a thing: Beck taking on a different well-known band as his backing for each tour. Imagine: Beck & The Heartbreakers...Beck & The Dap Kings...Beck & The Drummer from Gay Dad.

returning to sea change/morning phase singer-songwriter mode is an improvement over the last two albums but hardly anything to be excited about

Yeah he’s starting to look like Phil Spector or someone

Persistent Mercedes logo in that clip is… something

(That new album cover suxx too)

his hair's just way curlier than normal there which makes him look pretty different

Beck + Flaming Lips

just occurred to me that beck with straightened mullet in a leather jacket would look like joe dirt

xp somewhere my Beckon the Paining Exists? tour shirt is stashed away.

JMJ is a lifelong scientologist and his parents are very high level scinos.

― kurt schwitterz, Tuesday, February 21, 2023 3:41 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

and it's weird in like every interview he has a different story about how him and beck met instead of just saying "we grew up in scientology together" theres shady shit goin on there

― kurt schwitterz, Tuesday, February 21, 2023 3:43 PM

wonder about this a lot myself.

I had the radio going and they were talking about beck leaving Scientology and then getting “dragged back in” - but I had no clue what specifically they were talking about

I saw Beck at the Irving Plaza last year

( and the video someone took of it is still up! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8XRl8OJLDQ )

GREAT show, but I was struck by how much older he looked. I actually got to meet him in late 2002, and I thought back to that moment when he was already in his 30's but looking not much older than the college or high school-age fans surrounding him - the change really made that seem like a looooong time ago.

no idea about him "getting dragged back in" but a few years ago he claimed he'd never been a scientologist in an interview but that was largely seen as a way to distance himself from it without attracting too much hostility from the church

https://www.thedailybeast.com/beck-claims-he-was-never-a-scientologist-leah-remini-and-others-are-calling-bs