What was Beck's last great album?

I haven't heard much after Sea Change but I have a soft spot for that album.

haven't paid attention since Sea Change so Midnight Vultures. this roughly corresponds, perhaps not coincidentally, to his "coming out" as a Scientologist.

that song in Inland Empire is good tho

would vote midnite vultures if mutations didnt suck so fucking much and also typify and uncannily predict all the drecky mopeboy shit sandwich garbage still to come

of this decade, out of the ones I've really heard, Modern Guilt is probably my favorite. Is it great? Nah, not really. Last one I was really excited about was Midnite Vultures.

Also Midnite Vultures. imo "Debra" was the last time he wasn't humorless and for me that was a key part of his appeal.

Guero is actually pretty bad-ass and "Missing" is one of the best songs he's ever done, IMO. So, that's my vote.

Although I'm still pissed at that album for tricking me into getting Modern Guilt.

"The Information" was amazing (if overlong) and very unfairly ignored, imho

would vote midnite vultures if mutations didnt suck so fucking much

... I kind of don't see how Mutations sucking would keep you from voting for Midnite Vultures? There's no stipulation saying that every album previous to the one you voted for has to also be great, otherwise I would be voting "this dude has always been terrible".

Mutations is his best album THERE I SAID IT etc

(followed by Mellow Gold, THEN Midnite Vultures, THEN Sea Change, THEN Odelay)

I like "Mutations" too...

O_o

omg i remember hearing Guero and HATING it

I haven't heard much after Sea Change but I have a soft spot for that album

^this. but i hardly ever listen to it.

His latest album is his version of Skip Spence's "Oar"

It's pretty damn great.

Don't go near his VU&Nico one, it's unlistenable.

I don't know his LenCo one.

Think I might vote 'Sea Change'

Mutations is my favorite as well. Loved it since day of release.

Voted Midnite Vultures.

I think everything up through Midnight Vultures is great to varying degrees (altho I've never even heard of Golden Feelings?) It's really kinda startling now to go back to his earlier stuff like Stereopathic or Mellow Gold and the accompanying singles and marvel at just how fucking UGLY some of that stuff is - just distorted tape loops and screaming and whatnot - amazing that people saw commercial potential in this guy, he started off in a pretty abrasive/confrontational vein in a lot of ways. Course that's all gone/been sanded off now.

also Mutations is great.

the ballads on mutations are a+
i love guero and haven't heard information or modern guilt, so guero.

I like midnite vultures

I hate sea change so much that even thinking of it makes me mad

Mutations is great. Not at all humourless. It's got a great Stones circa Aftermath/Between The Buttons thing to it - harpsichords and folky-pop psychedelic touches. My favourite Beck record too - certainly the most consistent. I checked out after Sea Change, which I never fully came round to loving. Heard a couple of songs from newer things here and there that sounded good but nothing's given me an overwhlming desire to dig deeper.

I don't believe in the concept of disliking music over time, because there's always a residue of the things you once liked in there, but Beck might be the exception that proves the rule. With the exception of Where It's At and the first few songs on Mutations, I think I must have just been plain wrong about Beck in the 90s.

My husband has been downloading all his new covers projects of L. Cohen, Velvet Underground, etc., and damn they are mediocre. I hadn't picked up anything of his since Midnite Vultures. I used to be super obsessed w/him in high school & jr. high. I got weirdly wary about him shortly after...Scientology + breakup album sounded like a poisonous combo, so I never picked up Sea Change. I listened to modern Guilt at the strong recommendation of a friend & was like, "dude...why." Anyway, I voted Midnite Vultures (which I am extra sentimental about bcz I got some high school newspaper award for my review of it that netted me a pretty sweet scholarship).

Does not help that he used to be so hot and now he is like Duke of NAGL

http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2009/02/beck-necessary_evil.jpg

Hah, Loser has just come on 6Music and it sounds really really lame.

Mutations was the last album of his that I really enjoyed. I've given most of his albums since then a try but tend to lose interest before they're finished

amazing that people saw commercial potential in this guy, he started off in a pretty abrasive/confrontational vein in a lot of ways. Course that's all gone/been sanded off now.

― the sound of a norwegian guy being wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, April 29, 2010 12:46 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i don't think anyone saw commercial potential in him til loser got played on KCRW and people liked it.

Has he done any good videos since Midnite Vultures? I used to rly dig his videos for Odelay & Midnite Vultures.

IIRC the video for "Girl" was good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkCg-3nxT8E

Opening track of Mutations (Cold Brains) was my favourite song of all the songs ever when I was 15/16

ok i should prob listen to mutations again. i know that part of my reaction to it is that he played here like 2 weeks before it came out and basically did 100% midnite vultures all night review replete with wacky out there funk jams (it was fucking amazing actually), so when i went out and bought the album that was what i was expecting and then it was this limp tepid soft rock balladeer thing instead and i got very mad.

(and 'Diamond Bollocks' remains THE Beck prog-jam to end all others)

The last page of "Seventeen" magazine used to have a "dress like x celebrity" style guide. A year or two after Odelay came out, they had one of "Dress like Beck." I wonder if, ever before or since, they've had a dude celebrity on that page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIrG6xBW5Wk&feature=channel

okay I am not so sure about this video

I've been listening to One Foot in the Grave lately.
I don't think I can stand to hear anything else by him.

JJ you will wet your pants to 'Diamond Bollocks'

like my honorable friend aerosmith albums upthread, sea change makes me want to punch people in the fucking throat

xpost glad you used quotation marks there

t was this limp tepid soft rock balladeer thing instead and i got very mad

His voice gets to be a drag after a while, on the ballads, it must be admitted

I am listening to "Diamond Bollocks" right now and I am predicting LJ will be completely incorrect.

My friend used to say "I liked Beck until he started wearing Frenchie shirts." which is a pretty ??? statement

I think Guero is the last great Beck album (haven't heard Modern Guilt). Its a relaxed, confident record, which doesn't really push new ground sonically but takes some basic Beck templates and fills them up with great songs. Compared to Odelay, which I always found to be kind of exhausting and stuffed with too many ideas, Guero sounds a bit more digested and it goes down a bit easier.

Also I love that song Broken Drum.

Duke of NAGL

rofl

i don't think anyone saw commercial potential in him til loser got played on KCRW and people liked it.

this is true, but he followed this up with two totally difficult/non-commercial albums and a bunch of inscrutable singles (Steve Threw Up, for example) that are pretty harsh sounding

I am listening to "Diamond Bollocks" right now and I am predicting LJ will be completely incorrect.

Well, he has his reputation to live up to

So if I say Odelay is that considered a challops?

also Abbsies, dude has always dressed like that (nb: i have not seen him in over 10 years)

So if I say Odelay is that considered a challops?

ha not really, not if you measure his commercial success

guero is one of the best beck albums imo

not really sure I interpreted 'great' very well in voting for an album I barely listen to these days

but it's got some good stuff on it so what gives

idk Steve he wasn't always secreted away in a burqa of plaid and flowing tresses.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200/drP100/P190/P19045IT12A.jpg

yes

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/pic200/drP600/P692/P69253DGQZU.jpg

dude...why

Voted Sea Change b/c it's the last one that really felt significant.

voted sea change but tbh that album isn't very fun. just reminds me of this friend of mine who thanks to his parents became a scientologist, and a sudden megafan of beck. he's mostly into pretty classic rock and metal otherwise and then once in a while he will come with a suggestion like "hey, have you heard skip spence?" and i'll think that it's a pretty obscure album or whatever and everytime i then realize it's something beck has put his mark on in one way or the other. really don't care for beck.

idk Abbz go watch the loser vid again imo!

Right but that was 1993, you got taxed if you didn't dress like that.

dude...why

lol male pattern baldness

"hey, have you heard skip spence?"

really hope this particular association doesn't stick...

Gonna go with The Information here - thought it was pretty good, and liked Guero as well. As with some of my peeps upthread, I didn't really have a whole lot of use for Sea Change - wayyy too big a bummer with wayyy too little payoff for my liking.

Mutations >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sea Change

Midnite Vultures is really the last time I was excited about a Beck album. Guero is more than ok, but not important to my life.

has anyone heard that new charlotte gainsbourg record he's all over?

Anyone remember Tropicalia? That's my jam!

Does not help that he used to be so hot and now he is like Duke of NAGL
lol Abbott superOTM

I voted Mutations since no one else would and that album came out on my birthday and I was depressed that year.. don't really like Midnite Vultures nowadays though I did at the time.

Looks to me like Mutations and Vultures are both doing pretty well here - suprised there aren't more full-on haters coming out here, the little dude does bring it out of people sometimes which is actually pretty understandable. there is something eminently punchable about ol' Beck.

i've heard the Gainsbourg album a little bit, cuz my wife bought it for cheap from amazon last week. it sounded pretty good!

Yeah, the Charlotte Gainsbourg album's alright.

Mutations. There have been good albums since then, but all of them have been patchy to some degree.

odelay. i liked the production on mutations, but found the songs boring as hell. lol i kinda like listening to it now, actually. i was really stoked about the hidden track on mutations (oh hell yes is this what the next album will sound like).
midnite vultures; man, i really do not like that album apart from the electro track and some assorted production wiz. i still think sea change is boring but the string arrangements are really awesome. haven't heard the newer ones enough to comment. the best thing he's done since odelay is definitely charlotte gainsbourg's "irm" (the song, not the album).
i would've been down with a beck bossanova album after that 'don't let the sun catch you crying' soundtrack thing.

lol i kinda feel like listening to it now, actually

voted "odelay" tho i haven;t heard the last two and can't be arsed now

was never super into beck but cd probably still f/w most of "odelay" in a nostalgia stylee

I don't know that Beck has ever made a "great album," but Mellow Gold definitely comes closest for me, so I'm clicking that. He's made a couple okay ones since, but none that I ever feel the need to put on.

Actually his last great song that I heard was "The Little Drum Machine Boy," which I don't think ever wound up on any of his albums.

Sea Change for me. Don't know about "great" or not, but last album of his that I cared about at all.

Sea Change is the only Beck album I outright love, so I'll go with that, though I just put on Guero yesterday morning and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it (I mean, I knew I liked it, or I else I wouldn't have put it on, but I was just being knocked out by every song on the first half or so, which I don't think happened before). I wouldn't say Guero is great, but it is very good. I remember liking The Information at the time, but I haven't listened to it in probably three years. I never got around to Modern Guilt, mainly because the two songs I heard from it sounded tedious.

love sea change and the information (the latter is especially underrated).

it was kinda sad seeing used copies of the information roll in w/people's half-assed sticker collages on the front

Actually his last great song that I heard was "The Little Drum Machine Boy," which I don't think ever wound up on any of his albums.

― xhuxk, Thursday, 29 April 2010 19:15 (55 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is a great song. i have it (along with 'clock' and 'totally confused') on a compilation cd somewhere

what does 'nagl' mean?

it was kinda sad seeing used copies of the information roll in w/people's half-assed sticker collages on the front

That's funny! All the used copies I see usually have the front covers blank, and sticker sheets intact, never used.

Not A Good Look

Not a huge Beck fan, but I do like Mellow Gold a lot, so that one.

did y'all see that live performance from some church in the uk? it's kinda sea change-y but rad. dudes all by his lonesome but does some midnight vultures stuff. definitely look for it if you dig the sea change.

i feel sea change on like a hungover sunday sometimes.

but yea midnight vultures towers above what comes later

so what I'm getting from this is that I should check out Midnite Vultures

Yes. And you can probably find it used for about $1-3, if you're patient/thrifty.

this is a great song. i have it (along with 'clock' and 'totally confused') on a compilation cd somewhere

― sausage s4rgent (acoleuthic), Thursday, April 29, 2010 8:11 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban

xp lol I had that too - Select or Q sampler CD iirc. it was my prized possession (most inserts didn't make it overseas)

midnite vultures kinda comes across as his funniest/goofiest album at his frist, but i think it's the most conceptually cohesive album he's ever made. it's funny, but it's got depth to it as well.

The Muzak channel at one of my former jobs used to play this hilarious edit of "Sexx Laws." They changed it to go "I wanna defy the logic of all...laws," took out the middle part of the chorus & jumped straight to "I'm a full grown man but I'm not afraid to cry." A couple lines in the verses were straight lifted, too...I wondered why they even bothered to include it.

So far, "Sea Change", but the ones after it have all been good, and I am sure he is still capable of releasing another great one.

I think the thing with Beck is that he's gone from drawing on loads of stuff for each song to basically doing rewrites

Sea Change - Round The Bend -> Nick Drake - River Man
Sea Change - Paper Tiger -> Serge Gainsbourg - Melody
The Information - Dark Star -> Stevie Wonder - Have A Talk With God
The Information - Cellphone's Dead -> Herbie Hancock - Chameleon
Modern Guilt - Chemtrails -> Aphrodite's Child - The Four Horsemen

I mean, they're immaculately produced rewrites, but still.

And, btw. "Sea Change" was actually his best by quite a margin. A wonderful pop album.

The unfortunate thing about the Midnite Vultures era was watching white kids dancing to "Sexx Laws."

Vultures cuz:

haven't paid attention since Sea Change so Midnight Vultures. this roughly corresponds, perhaps not coincidentally, to his "coming out" as a Scientologist.

Mutations. "Loser" CDS was one of my first music purchases, Odelay was formative, Mutations solid but slighter, Midnite Vultures started to lose me a bit, and everything from Sea Change on has been more miss than hit.

the only thing interesting for me about midnite vultures was the cover art as it was lifted from a book that i have, EYE's first visual art compilation. nb: i only heard MV one time right before it was released and it was pretty dud. maybe it's aged better (or my tastes are completely watered down now more likely).

The Information is great and it is really underrated. I didn't like the idea of doing a '60s album' in Modern Guilty, so I didn't pay much attention. But I'm enjoying very much the record club thing specially the INXS one.

last great album=Odelay
last successful album=Guero

Guero is actually pretty bad-ass...

Although I'm still pissed at that album for tricking me into getting Modern Guilt.

This is exactly how I feel. Although I've always enjoyed that record and still think of it as his most complete - i.e. Successfully combining all the different elements of beckness - it's not quite great. So Sea Change.

voted for Sea Change though i still own Guero but never really listened to it. i also bought Modern Guilt but sold it back after one listen, when i still bought albums before d/l/testing first.

Midnite Vultures. Everything I've heard after that I haven't hated or anything but just like haven't been able to get worked up either way about any of it.

Never really got the Mellow Gold love. Was always some-hit/mostly-miss for me but then again I love every retarded thing on Sterepathetic Soulmanure so I dunno go figure.

"EYE's first visual art compilation"

tell me more! dig that artwerk....

midnite vultures is a jammer, imho. i voted sea change...

haven't paid attention since Sea Change so Midnight Vultures. this roughly corresponds, perhaps not coincidentally, to his "coming out" as a Scientologist.

"Unglued, depressed, the meatloaf in my chest
Personality test, I'd failed with the best"
-"Modesto", 1994

I gotta say Midnight Vultures. I worship + seek out everything he did before this. Sea Change was OK, but I wasn't really into it past a few weeks. The first time I heard "E-Pro" I knew he had jumped the shark.

Mutations is the best Beck album, but the next 3 after that were still all great. Voted Guero.

sea change

"Girl" is one step away from being a Sheryl Crow song.

From what I've heard, the man's career has largely been spent on the verge of being good, voted Stereopathetic Soulmanure which is pretty charming imo

this is a great song. i have it (along with 'clock' and 'totally confused') on a compilation cd somewhere

Shrinkwrapped card sleeve CD glued to the front of one of the first squarebound issues of Select

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/kitbrash/th_R-365221-1109655548.jpg

But originally taken from this:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/kitbrash/th_R-1309713-1208527324.jpg

Voted One Foot In The Grave, but would totally go see a Midnite Vultures-era live show again.

Would vote Sea Change, but the Charlotte Gainsbourg album is awesome. Maybe he just needs a different muse/outlet to freshen his songs up.

Definitely voting Sea Change, but Vultures is my favorite.

Since nobody asked, I'd rank 'em:
Midnite Vultures
Sea Change
Odelay
Mellow Gold
Mutations
The Information
Guero
One Foot in the Grave
Stereopathetic Soulmanure
Modern Guilt

Never heard Golden Feelings.

I hadn't been a fan per se of anything since the 90s, but I really liked the Skip Spence 'Oar' cover album he did with folks from Wilco and Feist via his 'Record Club' thing: http://www.beck.com/recordclub/

sea change. accidentally voted mutations. I haven't liked ANYTHING since sea change.

Sea Change, easily.

I like Modern Guilt, by the way.

Sea Change for me as well, but tbh it doesn't really mean much since I didn't particularly like any of the preceding albums apart from Mellow Gold (which prob remains my fave). I'm a bit puzzled by the love for Midnight Vultures which I remember as irritating pastiche.

Nah, Midnight Vultures was excellent -- he rhymes 'nicotine and gravy' with 'she looks so israeli' and 'miracles amaze me'

"Girl" is one step away from being a Sheryl Crow song.

― Adam Bruneau, Friday, April 30, 2010 1:17 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

is this meant to be a diss or

haven't paid attention since Sea Change so Midnight Vultures. this roughly corresponds, perhaps not coincidentally, to his "coming out" as a Scientologist.

― the sound of a norwegian guy being wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, April 29, 2010 11:35 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

he played here like 2 weeks before it came out and basically did 100% midnite vultures all night review replete with wacky out there funk jams (it was fucking amazing actually)

i was probably at this show! it ruled iirc---he finished (as was his habit at the time) with 'debra' and went around to each instrument on stage and jammed for a bit. this was like a BFD to 17-18 yo me

Voted One Foot In The Grave, but would totally go see a Midnite Vultures-era live show again.

OTM I have seen Beck four times at various career points b/w 94-02 & the MV show was the best by MILES. He had an insanely tight band at the time!

I remember the "Odelay" tour in the UK, where he did "Debra" and I decided he does falsetto much better than Prince.

(the main guy out of the support band died , hit by a car, 2 days after)

(the main guy out of the support band died , hit by a car, 2 days after)

^ who was that then?

Was pretty excited about seeing Roger Manning Jnr on that tour, and he looked totally cool.

Beck's appearance on the Larry Sanders Show is pretty awesome.

(the main guy out of the support band died , hit by a car, 2 days after)

^ who was that then?

― Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Farting in Space (NickB), Friday, 30 April 2010 09:36 (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

Brainiac iirc, decent band.

yep, though timmy wasn't hit by a car, he crashed driving home late from work on their next album. fucking tragedy.

though i liked some of guero and the information, for me mutations was his last truly great record. love the sound of that album...

I remember the "Odelay" tour in the UK, where he did "Debra" and I decided he does falsetto much better than Prince.

yeah it was actually pre-MV but already playing a huge, long, what he called I Wanna Get With You And Your Sister Deborah that I'm thinking of actually... DJ Swamp in the band, New Year's Eve '97 on Bondi Beach with the Avalanches supporting - last time they came up as a four-piece before Dexter joined, IIRC.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I was 13 when I bought my first Beck album, and remember thinking it was a rarity in the way that I was disappointed in what cash I wasted. About 10 years later and I still don't think there's anything really great about the guy.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

wtf at all the Sea Change fans around here

surprised at the number of votes in general tbh

I'm happy that 'this dude has always been terrible' got a solid show.

One Foot in the Grave is his only great album.

wtf at all the Sea Change fans around here

^^^

One Foot in the Grave is his only great album.

The title describes his overall career rather well, doesn't it?

Congratulations, you hate good music.

All downhill after MTV Makes Me Want To Smoke Crack (Lounge Version)

Congratulations, you hate good music.

New board description!

Woah, this was way more successful a poll than I thought it would be!

yeah never would have guessed so many gave a crap about beck

ilm listens to a lot of beck for a site that hates him

^^^my thoughts exactly. is he really just one of those zeitgeist-y figures that EVERYONE had to pay attention to at some point? cuz I wouldn't necessarily have thought so

I would have TOTALLY thought so, but I was a recent college grad when Odelay came out.

One Foot in the Grave is his only great album.

I kind of love Mellow Gold (and the 3 or so that followed to somewhat lesser degrees; can't speak to any since Sea Change tho), but i might have to cosign this

The critical discussion about Beck between 1994 and 1997 was deafening. You had to be there.

i've always *liked* Beck but have never counted him as one of my favorites. so, yeah, i generally pay attention to what he does, but i haven't loved anything since Midnite Vultures.

are you saying that it's amazing that people still listened to Beck in the 2000s? because that's how i feel exactly! but i guess the joke is on me since sea change was a "great album". ;-\

A friend of mine were in a bar talking the other night, and he said he thought it was amazing that Odelay! had ONLY sold three million copies. I said, "Only?!? I'd say that's pretty impressive for someone like Beck." He said, "Yeah, but doesn't it seem like everyone we know has a copy of that album? I mean, wouldn't you guess that three-quarters of the people in this room own it?" I said, "Uh, we're in a bar in Chicago with a whole lot of 21-to-35-year-old white people."
― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, April 18, 2005 1:31 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The critical discussion about Beck between 1994 and 1997 was deafening. You had to be there.

well I *was* there and remember it I just didn't think such a large portion of ILM was too

[nb: i dj'd at the radio station that "broke" him so i could be biased]

lol jaymc

alfred lord of challops how old are you, i thought you were a 20 something!

[nb: i dj'd at the radio station that "broke" him so i could be biased]

KBLT?

that sounds delicious

xpost dammit, too slow

haha

xxxposts: kxlu dude, you know this!

well I *was* there and remember it I just didn't think such a large portion of ILM was too

We represent the only people who discuss music!

I still listen to kxlu its hilarious

kxlu broke Beck? kcrw was where i first heard him.

KCRW put him back together

I still listen to Beck it's hilarious

I spun some Guero tracks just last week.

tho now i do recall hearing a beck interview on kxlu sometime around the time Loser was hitting it big.

i used to listen to radio

i saw one of his first shows. he was opening! for the treepeople (dug's pre-Built2Spill band) and further. i think "the reverend bud green" was also on the bill. it was at a downstairs bar in midtown LA (?) which closed after the 94 northridge quake. he covered BS's the wizard and his finale was blowing a bag of leaves with a leaf blower all over the stage... brief footage of which ended up in the Loser video. i thought it was kinda LOL, had no idea he would mainline into the zeitgeist of Alternative Nation within a few years... muchless have a record released 10 years later that ILM would deem "great". also he had yet to convert to scientology and he was much weirder before the e-meter took over, my dear thetans.

i went to the Troy Cafe (?) a coupla times when I was in high school and saw Beck there (hanging out, not playing) right around the time he was on the cover of BAM. Totally thrilling.

I think it's funny that the only album that didn't get a vote was the one no one has heard.

bongload HAND DELIVERED the loser 7" to kxlu... this was after a couple features on demolisten:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fll5C756_4s

so you had a show on kxlu around that time? ha, i probably listened to it! i pretty much lived off of kxlu for a while there. thought you guyz were the cooooooolest.

KBLT was cooler!

haw

lol but I guess they didn't start broadcasting til '95 so my chronology was off a bit

you are deluded! plus you couldn't get kxlu in the inland empire doggie

don't care wasn't livin there back then, just visiting my bro in Silverlake

DJs included Mike Watt, Bob Forrest, Keith Morris, my brother, loads of random guests like Jason Pierce, the Bros Reid, etc.

also he had yet to convert to scientology and he was much weirder before the e-meter took over, my dear thetans.

wow you were down with him before he was born, u r hardcore

orly tell me all u kno dawggie.

he was brought up $cieno & went to a clam school, just drifted away from active membership a bit in his late teens and early 20s

why so much hate for beck? i missed his moment of peak cultural significance (just not paying attention, i suppose; also, i'm old). but what i've heard, i've liked (e.g., parts of one foot in the grave; sea change; the information (tho i sold back my copy of odelay and never understood why it was considered such a masterpiece)).

so is it just me or is Beck quietly putting out some of his best music in a looooong while this year. Surprised no-one has been discussing this

i'm glad 'last great album' is not a common poll topic around here, i look at these results and i realize that i have no idea what it even means or implies

Wait, Beck's made a great album?

I'll rep for this one:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b5/Jeff_Beck%27s_Guitar_Shop.jpg/220px-Jeff_Beck%27s_Guitar_Shop.jpg

idg Jeff Beck's elite status as a guitarist. He's a bore.

is Beck quietly putting out some of his best music in a looooong while this year

He is.

Eh, I don't really like any of his albums, or necessarily his playing, but I really respect the guy's guitar skills. He's got a weird streak which vies with his blues roots.

his only acceptable contribution to music is on a Donovan song imho

Sea Change? Oh, come on.

It had its moments but as a whole? Boring as fuck

"Gimme" is nice!

fave so far has been "I won't be long" I guess I should move this to a more appropriate thread

Loved that loooooong track he released earlier this year, wanted to buy the 12" but the postage costs of sending it to the UK were way way prohibitive

Idg people who dg Jeff Beck. (Guitar Shop was really good but was by no means his last great album btw: Emotion and Commotion rules!)

Beck and his power trio (Tal Wilkenfied and Vinnie Colaiuta) are backing Brian Wilson on most of his new record!

Emotion and Commotion docked for Joss Stone and its cover:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/96/Emotioncommotionbeck.jpg/220px-Emotioncommotionbeck.jpg

I tried listening to jeff beck one night and just could not do it.

His catalogue is pretty varied.

so is it just me or is Beck quietly putting out some of his best music in a looooong while this year. Surprised no-one has been discussing this

Anyway, you guys are talking about the three tracks he released this year, according to Wikipedia? I haven't even checked out any of Song Reader yet.

Jeff Beck should record Song Reader!

One Foot in the Grave is his only good album

is Beck quietly putting out some of his best music in a looooong while this year.

it always gets me when people use the word "quietly" to describe things that are only "quiet" because no one actually gives a shit about them. I recently read in the local paper that some barely-famous musician "quietly" moved to town. What was he supposed to do, invite the world press to welcome him as he unloaded his U-Haul into his dilapidated apartment complex?

it always gets me when people use the word "quietly" to describe things that are only "quiet" because no one actually gives a shit about them.

i think in this case it means it is not being hyped by publicists, etc, like his major-label work has been, and as a result is not getting much press (although the sheet music thing got plenty of attention).

yeah - what I also meant is that he's been releasing these songs one by one through iTunes

Anyway, I moved this topic over here: Beck's surprisingly good recent output - appreciation and mild anticipation

He also produced Thurston Moore's fine 2011 solo album and a Malkmus album (if you like that sort of thing).

loved his work with thurston - hope they do some more work together