Beck ~ “One Foot in the Grave”

It was a special time to be a young lad. I will forever be a special young lad with a difficult burden to bear in this life, and no doubt the next as well. The early ‘90’s were an interesting time for Beck, as any leper or whore can tell you. I find it quite tasteful that Beck released such massive amounts of material during this time frame. Some may be unaware of “Golden Feelings,” “A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight,” and the “MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack” and “Steve Threw Up” singles, and perhaps they are better off avoiding this material? Maybe they would just prefer to flip their respective hairdos to albums like “Mutations” and “Sea Change,” and hey, more power to them, you know? I will say this however; nobody who ever liked Beck or tried to meet his mom will want to be without “One Foot in the Grave.”

This album has wonderful and lovely lyrical content, and this is back during a time when Beck did not try to sing, it is as if he almost would half-talk in his vocal performances, and this served the music and his lyrics quite well. The effortless approach of yore is endearing, charming, plentiful, pretend, real, and musically satisfying to the max. I will admit that this record does have some Independent Rock gloss, what with it being released on Calvin Johnson’s lame K Records imprint, but all is not lost, not even with dorks like Sam Jayne giving a miserable backing vocal. The only outside contributor on this record who is worth a lick, is perhaps the future drummer of Built to Spill and that bald guy who formed PUSA. Any questions at this point, because I’ll be kicking your ass regardless.

The instrumentation is largely acoustic-based, and leaves Beck room to breathe, the production is non-existent, again, leaving Beck room to blink and cough. Mr. Hansen works best with this no thrills production technique intact. This is not like modern rubbish by Freak Folk twerps or unbearable whores like Adam Green and Ben Kweller, as not all Anti-Folk is worth paying attention to, in fact, most of it is utter garbage and only liked by persons with retarded ear canals and a soulless gaze. Before you know it, this record is over. It’s just a simple and bizarre mix of Folk, Blues, and even elements of Noise Rock at times. Beck makes sure to pay tribute to his musical heroes with ease, such as: Skip James, Woody Guthrie and even Pussy Galore, it could be like totally argued.

I won’t tell you why I am beautiful, or that the secret of the universe resides in my bra strap, but I will say this: “One Foot in the Grave” is a musical Jim Dandy of a girlfriend, lyrically innovative, production that is raw like an onion. Yes, Beck did achieve some early musical goals on this here release, and Beck historians realize that this album had been building since his teenage years, when the young Mr. Hansen first developed an intense love for Roots music and went about beginning work on his awkward and entertaining home recordings. Some personal favorites include the beyond stark strangeness of “I Get Lonesome” and the old fan favorite “Cyanide Breath Mint.”

Fall in love with relaxed charm, an alternative to Alternative and something that sounds nothing like Pantera…