Beck: Classic Or Dud

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

Ya well James Jamerson was a Baptist so what

yah it doesnt take away from his greatness and its whatever but its ok to ask why all the lies, secrecy and diversion tactics? his family is famously scientologist, he famously grew up in it, surrounds himself with other scientologists, is married to a famous scientologist with a famous scientologist family. if he was just like "yah my dad got into it in the 60s and its always been a part of my life" no one would care.

anyway im stoked and hopeful about a new slow sad album

“Lies, secrecy and diversion tactics” seem to constitute him just saying over and over that his dad is a Scientologist and he grew up around it but he’s not personally into it

“But his wife is a Scientologist” and “but his bassist is a Scientologist (and Trent Reznor is ok with it)” aren’t particularly convincing gotchas, Kate Briquelet!

tbf to schwitterz, he's iirc known a lot of people deeply affected by this stuff, lives in the eye of the storm so to speak

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.

I'm unable to even think of the Beck album without Victor coming to mind

The Information is my favourite of the not 90s albums, though I find it nearly identical to Guero.

The Information is my favourite of the not 90s albums, though I find it nearly identical to Guero.

I heard a new Beck song today and it was so fucking boring that I changed the channel and "Comfortably Numb" on the classic rock station sounded like hearing it for the first time. And then they played "Eye of the Tiger," and I was like that Vince McMahon meme.

just listened to colors for the first time and it's very hit and miss. some really faceless unironic pastiche (this is the majority of it tbh) and some genuinely good second tier beck. i had forgotten about "dreams" - that's a good one! and "no distraction" is great too. not a total waste of time, but yeah, probably my least favorite thing he's done.

a few songs into hyperspace right now (first ever listen) and i really like it. sure, nothing is jumping out or hitting me in a "SUPER WOW!" kind of way, but it sounds good. a bit goofy and maybe too self-aware, but it certainly has that spirit of, "hey here's a mishmash of cool genreless pop sounds" that made his 90s records so appealing. if i didn't know pharrell had anything to do with it going in, i'm not sure i would've made the connection otherwise. *shrug* i kinda like it. will check back in after i get through it.

Vegas residency when

colors def has that vibe, yeah.

but idk, after getting through hyperspace i think it's absolutely second tier but still very good. like i said, it has an overall sound that i dig. cool synths doing cool harmonies and whatever. some of the hooks are quite good and the title track is some weird, polite kraut revival space pop.

neither album would get rated over anything that came before it.

Tried to rock out to Odelay today, and the magic is gone. Mellow Gold 4-evah

MG>O

I enjoy Odelay more now

Alcohol on my hands I got plans to ditch myself and get outside