This is a little rant about Beck. I've seen Beck catching a lot of slack from people whose taste in music I highly respect. The common argument is that Beck is no longer doing anything innovative, that he is simply assimilating the popular sounds of the moment and trying to remain in the spotlight for as long as possible. Well, I disagree, and this is why: Beck started out with an acoustic guitar and some tape recorder that would make Fisher Price look like Harmon Kardon. He would commit some of the most categorically demented sounds to tape and circulate them as music. It's difficult for me to describe just how warped albums like Golden Feelings and A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight truly are, not to mention the early collection of Fresh Meat and Old Slabs. One example would be "Special People," an acapella song featuring Beck's voice in about four different registers, not singing notes so much as speaking them. But on the same tape lies, "Let's Go Moon Some Cars," with a folky strum and a tuneful melody, as well as "The Ballad of Mexico" in which he details trying to rob his boss at a fast food joint with an earnest sincerity that could not possibly be feigned (and a better radio recording surfaced on KCRW Rare On Air Vol. 1). All through this early period, Beck was tearing apart and reassembling the genres that he was exposed to in his youth, whether it was folk, country, rock, or some experimental combination thereof, never once repeating himself. He generated these songs organically, whether hunched over a tape deck or out on the streets of LA playing for passers-by. And the sproadic nature of the recordings points to those musically diverse influences as being equally weighted in his mind, one never more vital than another. But Beck pushed the envelope further with his first proper studio recording, Stereopathetic Soul Manure. Comprised of material that spanned six years of recordings, there is no single word to describe the cross-section of music on this album. The opening track, "Pink Noise (Rock Me Amadeus)," ends in a flurry of feedback that abruptly gives way to the quiet country twang of "Rowboat," complete with pedal steel guitar. The story-telling of "Satan Gave Me a Taco" is followed shortly thereafter by the rock of "Tasergun." And the whole collection concludes with 15-minutes of pure analog bliss, noise over noise, droning on without ever seeming repetitious. Love. And then came "Loser." My first exposure to Beck, and probably the majority of the world's. I still remember the first time I saw that video, at least two months before I could locate any kind of single for it. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard, a huge beat pulling an acoustic slide guitar with a rusty chain of white-boy funk. I loved it, but what killed me about this song was how much people (i.e. critics, people in the music press) read into it, taking the chorus completely out of the utterly-nonsensical context of the rest of the song to raise it in the air as some standard for the so-called 'slacker' generation. "In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey/butane in my veins and I'm out to get the junkie/with the plastic eyeballs, spray-paint the vegtetables..." come on, read those fucking lyrics!! How could anyone possibly attribute some socio-cultural message to so much rhythmic drivel? It was great! Beck was and continues to be the first to admit that his lyrics come last, usually chosen strictly for the way they flow, the way they sound, instead of what they mean. And people latched onto this song with overzealous abandon, completely unaware that Beck had to be sitting somewhere going, "well, if they think it means something grandiose, who am I to argue?" And so it was, Mellow Gold goes gold. So what would the next logical step be in the evolution of an artist? Beck took a few steps back from the table and returned to his roots in some ways with One Foot in the Grave, a huge departure from the visionary direction that Mellow Gold had taken. Again, songs recorded over the course of time, not necessarily dated to its time of release, Beck can still be heard singing campfire songs around the gas fireplace, getting the trees to stomp along to songs that ache to be remembered. "She's just the girl of my dreams but it seems my dreams never come true." Or take into consideration one of my all-time favorites: "She dangles carrots/makes you feel embarrassed/to be the fool you know you are/she'll do anything/to make you feel like an asshole." Could all of those extranneous moments of lyrical frivolity give way to genuine emotion, a lonesome voice in the distance? I'd like to think so. For all of the skronks and squeals of his other work, Beck was not afraid to step out from behind that dissonance and deliver the goods. The critics then bruised and battered themselves as they stumbled over various and sundry accolades with which to reward the effort of Odelay. I don't understand how someone could love the production quality of Paul's Boutique without giving equal consideration to Odelay. Maybe I love this album so much simply because I love the layers upon layers of incongruent sounds, each made into one complex song. Classical music samples are not so groundbreaking anymore, but animal sounds? And it's not even the disparaging elements that made this album so great to me, it's just simply the way it flows together. The Dust Brothers really know how to create a solid groove by carefully dropping subtle sounds deep in the mix, things that are not necessarily evident on the first listen but begin to crop up as the listener tends to ignore portions of songs that have become more familiar. I can't count how many times I would be listening to Odelay and hear something that I had overlooked before. And that kind of attention to detail is wildly difficult to duplicate. But what pre-existing musical condition is he copping on Odelay? No artist draws more direct influence from various styles of music into a single song or record than Beck, with the exception of, say, Mr. Bungle. After slaving in the studio for months to create Odelay, Beck toured incessantly for the next two years. Over that time, he accumulated a cache of songs that he wanted to record before beginning a follow-up to Odelay. So in the span of two weeks, he recorded and mixed all of Mutations, an album filled with images of dilapidation and melancholy. Arguably conceived through the rigors of touring, Mutations is a quiet and mature record, with lyrics that seem to come from experience and regret. It's a record that I believe is exponentially more heartfelt than One Foot in the Grave, drawing upon emotions that Beck had yet to put on record with such clarity. "There was no one nothing to see/the night is useless and so are we/cause everybody knows/the fabric of folly is fallen apart at the seams." Nothing tongue-in-cheek there, in my opinion. And perhaps that's why Beck is dismissed by some people, because they can't accept that an artist may have more than one aspect to their personality, including a brooding and serious side. He's done duets with Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris, but is that to say that he is trying to put his foot into the door of country music as well? Of course not, no more than Willie Nelson wants to do splits on-stage and sing "Debra." But the roots of country and folk are in his blood as evidenced by his early output, and hearing a bluegrass breakdown at the end of "Sexxlaws" is no less indicative of that fact. Which brings me to Midnight Vultures. I don't understand how someone could not like this album. It's a feel-good party album, and who's doing feel-good party albums in the late-90's? Who was the last artist or group whose sole intention in making a record was to get people dancing? I've heard some people say that this album is too superficial, but where was the depth in songs like "High 5 (Rock the Catskills)" or "Fume"? I don't understand what is so wrong with creating a series of songs about getting wiffchoo. And more importantly, as with Odelay, these songs are layered and complex, not just a series of samples. The acoustic breakdown in "Milk & Honey" is amazing, not to mention the fact that he quite possibly sampled his own previous harmonica work in "Broken Train." And "Debra"... godDAMN, how can you not love that song, or even the very idea of making a song like that? It takes the piss right out of Blackstreet, Shai, Jodeci, et cetera... it is more soulful to me in its ridiculous pretense than anything that Timbaland or R. Kelly has created and homogenized for the general public to consume willingly. I will also say right here and right now that Beck might single-handedly resurrect early-80's electro-boogie... the b-side "This Is My Crew" is f'ing blistering, as is "Get Real Paid." If you must overanalyze lyrics, imagine who Beck might be referring to in that song: "We like to fly on executive planes/We like to sit around and get real paid." Sounds like every stereotypical money-grubbing rap/r&b artist I can think of right now. Or maybe it doesn't, as the same song insists that you "touch my ass if you're qualified," licked like a stamp and stuck to yr head. Beck is an evolving artist, willing to ply his trade at an genre that has already influenced his musical life. I continue to look forward to his future output, especially after hearing snippets like the ones that appear at the end of the last two albums. Doesn't anyone else find it strikingly subversive that he appears on the VH1 Fashion Awards in patched jeans and a cut-off shirt singing, "I want to defy the logic of our sexxlaws"??? It's beautiful that he's invading the collective subconscious this way... or maybe it's just my ass shaking... if you've read this far, you are bored at work, *phiL* __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. All in one place. Yahoo! Shopping: http://shopping.yahoo.com
