midnite vultures

Aside from that I've always thought Beck was hideously overrated.

Favourite song: "Hollywood Freaks"

Favourite line: "I'll spray graffiti where you've never been kissed"

Also: "Get Real Paid" is at least two years ahead of the electroclash curve. Except he actually vamps on the chorus, so I'm thinking that it's somehow perversely and retroactively skewering the aloofness of a genre that hasn't quite established itself yet.

I only discovered the other day that most people hate it.

sea of change
wow did he steal!

Sea Change is terrible.

makes you worried that in a couple short years they will also be praising sea change!

First time I ever heard anything from it in a record store somewhere, I asked the clerk, "Is this a new Prince album?" So...

"I'm glad i got my suit dry-cleaned before the riots started."

love that. "sexxlaws" and "Mixed bizness" were played at every party back when i was 17/18, so i have fond memories tied up in this one. also, i remember being in gran canaria, and drunkenly trying to get everyone in my apartment to serenade my beer can with "get real paid" (which was on the stereo at the time). happy days...

a-ha. does ring a bell, dimly. i mean i certainly get more easily bored by Odelay than by Midnite Vultures these days.

tho i'd probbly prefer Mutations to both of 'em

When Chaki told me Beck's parents were big scions in the Church of Scientology, I got the idea that all of his lyrics are adapted from weekly phone conversations with his dad. Barring that I don't think most of the lyrics on Midnite Vultures are so much clever or good as much as they are designed to capitalize on his established schtick. Beck could cover the TMBG catalogue, throw in some references to his SoCal milieu and nobody would bat an eye.

That said I have no idea how somebody could think this was a Prince album. I don't hear it at all.

Er, sorry. ;-)

he needs to go back to basics and write more songs about Ozzy, weed whackers, and winos

Most of the songs on Sea Change are great, but I can't fault anyone for getting burnt out on having them all in a row on one album, even if you gotta admire the tonal consistency and audacity to make that album, esp right after MV

The string arrangements are pretty impressive on Sea Change but becks “regular” music makes me yawn

I didn't know there were originally more samples (just a few, they had to take them out for legal reasons), nor that it leaked out on the original promos - was happy to get a copy a few years back.

― birdistheword,

didnt know this - any notable differences? worth tracking down?

Someday I'll go back to Sea Change and try listening to it as something other than a Beck album. As a Beck album in the context of all those previous Beck albums, it sucked hard (says the me from 20 years ago as that was the last time I listened to Sea Change).

I may have quipped that it should've been called Whineona.

Yeah, I hated Sea Change when it came out, but now I absolutely love it now. It really marked the last time every Beck album meant "Something he hasn't done before." Something was really lost when he starts going back to the well, whether by coincidence or causation

I loved Sea Change and I saw the tour that preceded it. (He previewed the songs, but it was still early - at the Chicago/Evanston stop, he mentioned that he had to turn in the album title but couldn't say what it was yet.) I was already a huge fan of Hank Williams, Plastic Ono Band, the Velvet Underground and Big Star's 3rd, and the songs he picked from them to cover on that tour pretty much laid the foundation for Sea Change. Along with Odelay, I still think it's his best work.

Morning Phase is fine - he's even more comfortable covering the same ground as before (this time in a very relaxed state), so it gets by on craft, but except for a few moments I didn't like the two albums he's made since. Colors kind of makes some sense, especially after I saw him on that tour - a lot of it recalls or outright lifts things from contemporary hits, and hearing its tracks next to his older stuff got me thinking that it's a logical progression from the sampling he used to do. It played well live, but I tried hearing the record again on its own, and it didn't really transcend those limitations.

I didn't know there were originally more samples (just a few, they had to take them out for legal reasons), nor that it leaked out on the original promos - was happy to get a copy a few years back.

― birdistheword,

didnt know this - any notable differences? worth tracking down?

More info here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Beck/comments/5ln2yd/odelay_promo_anyone_ownheard_this_really_curious/

Colors is lol totally a Cut Copy album

He put on quite a show back then

After his performance at the 1997 Grammys, there was a cut-away to Diana Ross in the audience being all, "Damn, boy."

Odelay tour is easily in my top ten live shows ever, he just killed it

Yeah, that show came to my college with ... Atari Teenage Riot opening!

I do enjoy Mr. Beck's string arrangements on Sea Change, you can tell Beck Jr. was pushing for a Vannier sound

his old live band was siqq - smokey hormel, victor indrizzo, lyle workman, the amazing roger manning jr.. DJ SWAMP

is he still playing with the geggy tah guy?

whoever he is...

Beck and timbalands incredible remake of diamond dogs should've been on MV but then it would've been the best thing on here. I still like it a lot. Prob my fave beck album actually. Very dense production though, prince would have cut it back, but then it wouldn't have been a beck album. Lost interest in beck since tbh, sea change was kinda snoozy, but I like the guy.

Mv has a peculiar tone though, its obv he likes the sources, but obv he also is a bit snide about it, so seems somewhere between the two. I guess that's just beck but hard to love a guy that seems to find it hard to show real love without worrying how it looks for this stuff, hes too worried what cool ppl think. Idk if he grown up since.

Didn't Beck give Justin Meldal-Johnsen his first big break?

Very dense production though, prince would have cut it back, but then it wouldn't have been a beck album

For all the Prince influence cited Re: this record, seems like a lot of folks miss all the P-Funk worship also on display, particularly in said dense production.

Plus goofy '80s Funk (Cameo, Zapp)

...and how could I forget Morris Day? I just watched the '96 VMAs "New Pollution", and Beck did a little homage to him during it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGFXLcOLM90

no claim of 'odelay has aged like milk' is complete without the claimant being forced to listen to 'novacane' three times in a row

Force is the only way that's happening.

Joey going ham in that clip

It is weird to watch Beck videos from 1996/1997 and think about a time when that whole schtick was enjoyable (and well-executed), before its memory was sullied by the Ben Kwellers and Of Montreals of the world

The '90s were a sexless time for white non-gay people

when i ran the Beck poll about two years back "Debra" was the highest placing track from this album and finished in the Top 10.

The '90s were a sexless time for white non-gay people

You could make this argument musically for each decade. Sexless synthpop, soft penis prog...

xp that’s because “Debra” attracts Bowie fans and “Beck is a novelty act” peeps alike. Can’t think off the top of my head of a more horribly formed opening couplet “joke” than “JC Penney / Jenny”

this is the best beck album, don't understand why "debra" is getting so much hate, he pulls it off fine. i guess i get why people find his schtick exhausting in general but i don't really mind it bc the music is genuinely great, love the hyperactive kitchen-sink funk sound he developed for this album.

"hollywood freaks" is indefensible though yeah

I love Debra unreservedly

I have a workplace crush whose name is Debra. Anytime I see her my brain starts playing the intro.

this was a riot when it aired, and still is!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK7bK6JWctA

fuck, is that waronker again? he's so good

There's a real dissonance when you realize just how serious he is/was about creating these funk masterpieces, and they really are masterful, with this weird feeling that I can't describe in any other way than "why doesn't the Serge schtick work in English"

there's a couple moments in that "mixed bizness" performance where he really does look strikingly similar to bowie

Also, I’m an Ice Cube fan and I have no idea what Beck was talking about

Didn't Beck give Justin Meldal-Johnsen his first big break?

they both grew up in the church together!

fuck, is that waronker again? he's so good

no its vic indrizzo!

Serge? Makes me think of David Byrne a lot. I dont hear p funk on this album much, but I do hear him still employing his approach to sampling, that kinda beasties ish aesthetic, just without much actual sampling. It is a white funk classic for that 90s alt rock era. Works for ppl who love funk and rnb as well as those who dont take them seriously but dont mind them in this guise.

Weirdly I was going through my records to sell stuff yesterday and decided to keep the 7"s from this album in the end. Then I saw this post. I never actually realised he released the mv title track as a b side too.

then again, i guess you could see some clinton influence in the weirdness and lyrics.

Can’t think off the top of my head of a more horribly formed opening couplet “joke” than “JC Penney / Jenny”

I think it's hilarious because it's awful, and intentionally so.

listening to this for the first time in like 20 years and it mostly holds up, though i agree "hollywood freaks" was probably already a mediocre song that has aged to be even worse. i had forgotten about the middle run of peaches & cream/broken train/milk & honey, which are all pretty great.

the falsetto gets exhausting after a while, and if you want to listen to falsetto slow-jam pastiche joke song, you should go with "freedom of '76" over "debra"

Beautiful Way has no place on this album with its strained sincerity.

I don't hear sincerity at all.

it could've worked on Mutations too

For what's ostensibly a good-time, satyrical, party album, this record sounds really belaboured.
Listening to Beck can be strange for me because I find each new song can be entrancing or totally banal. It's like I don't give him any benefit of the doubt, he has to impress me anew with each new thing. Partly because his persona comes off as blank.

I dont think he does or can do off the cuff spontaneity though. His music comes from the head usually. And he has a lot of filters the music has to pass through before it is finished.

Also who says good time records have to mean the artist turns their brain off or tries to sound as if they do? :)

I've just realised after many years that it goes "touch my ass if you're qualified" and not "touch my ass and you'll feel quite a fright". this definitely changes my enjoyment of midnite vultures tho i don't know whether in a better or worse direction.

Depends if you're qualified