Beck in the New York Times Magazine

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Or, is all beat-driven music "hip-hop"?

I found this to be a very strange article, because it seemed so insistent on contextualizing Beck as a hip-hop artist. As far as I can tell, this is a leftover legacy from the days of "Loser," particularly that song's vocal style, and his occasional use of breakbeats. (Maybe his new record *is* a hip-hop record; I haven't heard it.) But it seemed like the author was striving to make Beck seem more representative of some alleged change in the Zeitgeist than he really is. Plenty of artists compose songs by laying down beats first, but here it's presented as this radical methodological shift.

Also, and this is nitpicky, but I have a hard time taking seriously music criticism that describes "...scrims of synthesizer distortion and DJ scratching" -- what is synthesizer distortion? Distorted synthesizer, ok, but synthesizer distortion? That's such a convoluted and essentially incorrect way of describing a musical effect that it makes me wonder about all the analyses in the piece.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Link here, btw. I'd paste it, but it's 6 pages long.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Had he been born a generation earlier, Beck (he dropped the Hansen when he started performing) would most likely have been a folk singer with a guitar strapped over his shoulder and a penchant for wryly autobiographical or protest songs. Instead, even after releasing five far-ranging and well-received major-label CD's, he is still best known for his early single, ''Loser,'' from 1993. ''Loser'' is a white-boy rap song, with an infectious recurring melody that vaguely recalls the close of the Beatles' ''Hey, Jude.'' Its deadpan refrain -- ''I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me'' -- became a slacker mantra of the 90's. Was he serious or joking? The question itself seems generationally dated. Every either-or inquiry that you put to Beck or apply to his songs is resolved with a ''maybe'' or a ''both.''

eh?

― david day (winslow), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Nah, I hear it: "Soy un perdidor" = "Na, na na nana na nah"

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

"Soy / un / perdidor" = "Na / na-na / na-na-na-na."

I can hear it.

(XPOST!!!!)

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:42 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah i hear it too, but jeez if that's the first thing you reach for to compare it too maybe they should assign a different writer

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:43 (twenty-one years ago)

that whole paragraph is a bit messy though. this too:

So I was a little mystified when Mark Kates, a former Geffen Records executive, told me, ''With 'Sea Change,' I really feared his ability to reach people.'' What could he mean? How could the songs from ''Sea Change'' -- in which a typical line is ''Your sorry eyes, they cut through bone/They make it hard to leave you alone'' -- be less accessible than a lyric like ''Heads are hanging from the garbageman trees/Mouthwash, jukebox, gasoline,'' which comes from ''Odelay'' -- the disc that won him two Grammys?

― david day (winslow), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:43 (twenty-one years ago)

"As a white man stretching the parameters of black hip-hop music"

?!?!

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:45 (twenty-one years ago)

the beastie boys dwarf him in the record place????

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:45 (twenty-one years ago)

haha "dear ny times - plz go back in time and let kelefa write this feature"

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:46 (twenty-one years ago)

guys, think about who this article is really written for.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Prospective Beck fanclub members?

"Soy / un / perdidor"

You mean to say he didn't sing "So... open the door"?

― JoB (JoB), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

o come on stence the times (even the sunday magazine which is yes a different thing altogether) has nondaft arts coverage all the time, this shit could be in rolling stone.

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:53 (twenty-one years ago)

haha i've seen karaoke versions of 'loser' that make the lyrics 'so/depended on/i'm a loser baby/so why don't you kill me'

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:53 (twenty-one years ago)

The most interesting thing I learned from that article is that Christina Ricci has a cameo on "Hell Yes"!

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:54 (twenty-one years ago)

c'mon blount if you're arguing for kalefah as "nondaft arts coverage" i gotta give you the gas face.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:55 (twenty-one years ago)

kehleifa's just fine!

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:56 (twenty-one years ago)

fuck no! a&l's only worth reading for frank rich (sometimes). sunday magazine for politix, the ethicist, and the crossword.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 7 March 2005 19:58 (twenty-one years ago)

i buy a sunday times maybe twice a year

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:01 (twenty-one years ago)

i buy it every week. it's a ripoff.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

but i work a double on sundays and get really bored, so.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

This morning's A&L gave me a good ten minutes of subway crossword time and the knowledge that JSFoer, one of few working writers that I think would actually benefit from having their tics workshopped away, has written some new novel about a kid and 9/11. Kalefah is fine, unless you're actually trying to be a jerk about it.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I didnt know people here disliked kelefa.

― djdee (djdee2005), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:21 (twenty-one years ago)

JSFoer, one of few working writers that I think would actually benefit from having their tics workshopped away, has written some new novel about a kid and 9/11...

profile on him and his new novel two weeks ago in sunday magazine!

some things kelefa's written i like, but lately gone way overboard on the "i'm gonna goose the rockist establishment" tip.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

rumour has it kelefa is the fabled 'fuckable male rock critic' - is this true?

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

But I don't read the Sunday mag anymore! I'm busy paying Columbia to take over Manhattanville, I can't afford such frivolity.

Anyway a giant article about Beck of all people is (a) one of the last things I'd ever want to waste time reading, writing, or thinking about, and (b) pretty much right up the NYTMag's alley. Being amazed that he uses beats sounds like a terrible, terrible angle: it sounds like it's from eight years ago, it only applies to a fraction of Beck's boring oeuvre, and it could just as easily be aimed at dozens and dozens of other artists. Other than that, a skim of the first page makes the article look basically fine, in a magazine-profile kind of way.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost you can investigate, blount, no thanks.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:26 (twenty-one years ago)

(K's nice-looking, J, yes. And by the way I think the reason ILX often gets annoyed by articles like this is that we want them to be music criticism, whereas they are in fact magazine profiles. Obviously you want to get as much solid, interesting analysis as you can into a piece this long, and hell, it'd be nice to see something that covered both ends -- maybe Sasha can get there -- but a mag profile is a mag profile and it's a whole different thing than criticism from the inside.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:27 (twenty-one years ago)

(That said, I am way finer than Kalefah and way finer than everyone else, too.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:28 (twenty-one years ago)

nabisco otm re: magazine profiles. can't speak to the "fineness."

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

"As a white man stretching the parameters of black hip-hop music"
?!?!

-- geeta (geet...), March 7th, 2005.

reminds me of this (excellent) piece by Dylan Hicks: http://www.citypages.com/databank/26/1265/article13016.asp?page=3

also, magazine and paper are VERY separate entities

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

This was a good NYT Magazine article on Beck.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

haha that's great!

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

that citypages article is fantastic!

― djdee (djdee2005), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

dylan hicks is a helluva writer

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Agreed.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

hicks is going to catch so much shit for that article, i can't wait. he said everything that needed to be said. i even wrote a letter to the editor agreeing, first time if done that in a looong time.

― f--gg (gcannon), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

About the only thing I would gently disagree with re: Hicks is "Toxic," which is starting to become the "Stairway to Heaven" or something of a new generation (ie "OMG HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE THIS ARE YOU DEAF" "uh, it's just pleasant?").

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

OMG i somehow just caught the title of the nytimes mag article: "beck at a certain age"!!!! doesn't this sound like the tag for a liquor ad you might find in a sixties playboy or something?

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I feel like Beck's been in the NY Times magazine a lot. I didn't mind the article, though. I certainly didn't read it like it was Beck in zeitgeist changing shockah or anything. I thought it was more like wow Beck grew up, has a wife and baby, and sings about deeper stuff now. He's not a loser, baby. He's a serious artist. Etc.

― mcd (mcd), Monday, 7 March 2005 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

i even wrote a letter to the editor agreeing, first time if done that in a looong time.

Haha, the only time I've ever done that was to Pitchfork, agreeing with Ethan's Eminem Show review in anticipation of the hate mail!

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 7 March 2005 21:02 (twenty-one years ago)

(I didn't even know Ethan or ILM at the time, I just thought, haha, that's a cool review.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 7 March 2005 21:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I found this to be the key paragraph, personally:

"Like his wife and his father, Beck is a Scientologist. ''It's been useful,'' he says. ''My dad's been doing it since before I was born.'' In the Church of Scientology, members seeking what the church calls ''higher levels of spiritual awareness and ability'' are ''audited'' by a counselor and also by a device called an ''e-meter,'' which measures their physiological reactions. When reminded that the Church of Scientology provokes continuing controversy -- as much for its tight control over adherents as for its core program -- Beck fixes his huge blue eyes in an unwavering gaze and challenges the church's critics. ''Any kind of intolerance I have a distaste for,'' he says, especially when the intolerance is directed at ''something that helps teach kids how to read, addicts to get off drugs and convicts to start a new life.'' He continues: ''I've always appreciated other cultures and other ideas. Even music I didn't particularly enjoy. I always thought there was something interesting there, something to learn. I was such a lover of old blues music and scratchy old 78's, and I would hear new R&B and it sounded so glossy. But then the more I listened to it, the more I appreciated it.'' With the conversation drifting far from the topic, he is asked how Scientology helps him. ''It's a personal thing,'' he says. ''I'm a musician. I'm not, like, a personality. I've never really pretended to perform that kind of function.''

― Bent Over at the Arclight (Bent Over at the Arclight), Monday, 7 March 2005 22:20 (twenty-one years ago)

God this part leapt out at me too, pretty much rendering the rest irrelevant. "Beck fixes his huge blue eyes in an unwavering gaze" sweet fuck. He's smoking the Dianetic.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Monday, 7 March 2005 23:18 (twenty-one years ago)

What the hell is an "e-meter"?!?!?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 7 March 2005 23:21 (twenty-one years ago)

its that fucking contraption they try and hook you up to during those 'personality/stress tests' you can get every 5 feet in hollywood.

― Dude, are you a 15 year old asian chick? (jingleberries), Monday, 7 March 2005 23:25 (twenty-one years ago)

The E-meter . . . it's basically like a lie detector- it measures galvanic skin response to electrical current, ie. subtle changes in the conductivity of your skin as you sweat more or less in response to stimulus. The e-meter is used in connection with probing questions about anxieties / insecurities / failings- basically Scientology is just therapy plus a gizmo plus an artificial lingo that gives it an aura of "scientific foundation". The whole architecture of auditing is designed to flag insecure suckers so that the pyramid scheme can bilk em for all they're worth: so it's perfect for Hollywood where lots of people want an edge or an angle (or a crutch).

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Monday, 7 March 2005 23:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Hollywood is not the only place where people want those things.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 7 March 2005 23:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a musician. I'm not, like, a personality.

― miccio (miccio), Monday, 7 March 2005 23:41 (twenty-one years ago)

o bother

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 7 March 2005 23:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree that magazine profiles are and should be different beasts than music crit -- frankly, I'd love to learn to do a proper profile. But I marvel that music criticism's currency is so debased that the laziest half-analysis and meaningless jargon can sneak through editing. To me "synthesizer distortion" (I know, I'm nitpicking, but that really jumped out at me" is like an economics piece that talks about "inflationy interest rates," or something similarly vague.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Monday, 7 March 2005 23:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I liked how he wrote something about how it was such a huge thing to have "Beck exploring feelings of hurt and ambivalence in the setting of a loop-generated beat" or something really ridiculous like that, it was even the big quote in the article... so, like, hiphop never had that?

― svenne, Monday, 7 March 2005 23:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I also liked how he wrote something about how it was such a huge thing to have "Beck exploring feelings of hurt and ambivalence in the setting of a loop-generated beat" or something really ridiculous like that, it was even the big quote in the article... so, like, hiphop never had that?

― svenne, Monday, 7 March 2005 23:54 (twenty-one years ago)

It's weird- I have noticed this dynamic when someone who is "a good writer" but not "a music writer" gets assigned to interview / write about a musician, you get this weirdly lopsided result- often they hit the nail on the head as a psychological evaluation of a person, but the art part goes all pear shaped.

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Monday, 7 March 2005 23:54 (twenty-one years ago)

uhhgggg... Beck is such a punk. he's ALWAYS denied being a SCINO for years (up until Sea Change interviews) even though EVERYONE knew. and i like how he gets mad for "religious intolerance" LOOK ,BITCH, YOUR "CHURCH" MAKES PEOPLE IN CLEARWATER FLORIDA WORK LIKE SLAVES FOR FREE AND EVEN KILLED ONE GIRL BY NOT LETTING HER GO TO THE HOSPITAL. WOW IM a such a religious bigot for not "tolerating" the "church's" behavior. I HOPE YOU AND YOUR NEW RICH WIFE AND FAMILY ENJOY BEING AUDITED AND PRAISING XENU WHILE THE POOR ASS SCINO SEA ORG SLAVES CRY THEMSELVES TO SLEEP EVERY NIGHT...bastard! OH BTW YOU NEW ALBUM IS WACK! YOU WENT OUT LIKE A BITCH.

― charleston charge (chaki), Monday, 7 March 2005 23:58 (twenty-one years ago)

feh

― Stupornaut (natepatrin), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 06:48 (twenty-one years ago)

(feh upon Beck actually being a Scientologist, dickwranglers talking shit about his music, bad NY Times writers and myself for reading this thread)

― Stupornaut (natepatrin), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 06:49 (twenty-one years ago)

haha I met some scientologists in Port Authority who were all setup with their e-meters and my bus was fuxored coz of snow so I went by and they tried to test me. I asked them how it worked -- it really looked like two tin cans attached to a fake star-trek gizmo -- and they were like "it reads your stress" and I was like "how does it do that?" they really didn't answer, just kept saying "it uses science to read your stress." so i asked them what the dials did. "uh, they're for tuning it." how? "everyone has a base number." (there was some word before number, i forget what) "and you set this dial to the base number, then read their stress from the base." "oh."

it looked like one dial indeed did set base capacitance or whatever, and the other adjusted sensitivity with some sort of variable resistor. dunno about the other few knobs. there was one marked "A B C"!

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 07:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Beck's Scientology is the only interesting part of that article (and interesting only if you didn't already know it, I guess, which I didn't) (and "interesting" only to the extent that any piece of information about Beck can be interesting).

I like Beck OK, I mean I don't hate him even if I'm almost never in the mood to listen to him, but I resent that he's somehow supposed to represent something, about my age group in particular. I feel the same way about Jeff Tweedy, these guys are wheeled out over and over to fill some hoary old niche of The Artist, because they sort of vaguely resemble past models of such. But they're both such minor, inconsequential figures (shit, at least Bono seems like a rock star) that the hushed respect for their mostly facile output drives me to dislike it even when I don't.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 07:39 (twenty-one years ago)

im sorry i got so mad :/

― charleston charge (chaki), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 08:06 (twenty-one years ago)

They had a 'now hiring' sign up at the Vancouver dianetics place. Do they make you piss in a cup?

― dave q (listerine), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 08:46 (twenty-one years ago)

when beck first appeared someone i at the time had a crush on said she liked him bcz he ushered in the "age of the round-shouldered ppl"

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 09:49 (twenty-one years ago)

A good e-meter article (url broken coz of sc13nt0l0g1sts):

www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/
E-Meter/Mark-VII/index.html?FACTNet

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
x-post

― Don't Ever Antagonize The Horny (AaronHz), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:24 (twenty-one years ago)

the scientology thing is regretful but not particularly disturbing to me...it really doesn't bother me any more than when i listen to Satanist Nazis like Darkthrone or Burzum!

― latebloomer: correspondingly more exaggerated mixing is a scarifying error. (lat, Friday, 11 March 2005 01:27 (twenty-one years ago)

In terms of one-named blondes with questionable extracurricular sociocultural interests and hep art friendz, Nico is a lot creepier than Beck. (This mostly going by her "negroes are ugly" remarks as quoted in Ego Trip's Big Book of Racism.)

― Stupornaut (natepatrin), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Nico vs. Beck = Opiate vs. Opiate of the people

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 11 March 2005 02:54 (twenty-one years ago)

It's probably illegal how much I love Guero. I mean, this is easily the most in love I've been with anything he's done since Odelay (if you wanna say singles then "Sexxlaws").

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 17 March 2005 16:04 (twenty-one years ago)

You'd think that Beck thnks "negroes are ugly" from his treatment of black music on "Midnite Vultures."

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 17 March 2005 17:33 (twenty-one years ago)

BECKFACE

― Silky Sensor (sexyDancer), Thursday, 17 March 2005 17:42 (twenty-one years ago)

You'd think that Beck thnks "negroes are ugly" from his treatment of black music on "Midnite Vultures."

10 days old and it's still gapingly retarded.

― Stupornaut (natepatrin), Monday, 28 March 2005 02:34 (twenty-one years ago)

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