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…

Religious Music

Believe you me, it is not a bad thing, really, it’s not. It even can kick some hairy butt-perm at times, but I digress like a cat from Japan that made it too far. Western civilization itself is a religion of sorts, and if that analogy sounds vague to you, then I got two words for you: bite these nuts. Not all religious music is Contemporary Christian. Ever heard of Johann Sebastian Bach? A very religious and gentle creature, and only one of the most fantastical Baroque era composers of all-time, my friend! I shit you not, I shit you not. Come to think of it, much of what is enjoyable in Classical music has certain religious themes, in fact a whole category of the Classical genre caters to religious feeling, and this is best musically expressed in what was referred to as sacred music, and certainly, Mozart made his fair share, and he was damn good, too, you hear!

Religious elements exist in the Rock roots of Blues music, just think of Blind Willie Johnson, for example, go ahead and think of him for a spell, child! A lot of what has been mentioned thus far relates to Christianity, but damn, you ever heard Klezmer before, boy? That stuff is great, at least often times, certainly an enriched music that is very much worthy of the Jewish faith, Psychedelic Rock contained many Eastern folk elements, much of which derived from the Buddhist, Islamic and Hindu faiths respectively. Even goofy Goth Rockers with their whimsical whiney songs, often times borrow quite heavily from Pagan and Satanic religious belief. Just think about Johnny Cash for a moment, that is to say, religion in music is everywhere! I believe this to be a good thing, as music native to a specific culture often contains overt religious fervor and imagery, my darling little fountain of joy. Celtic Folk comes to mind! You may even be listening to religious music at this particular juncture, Mr. or Mrs. Punk Rocker. You looking good in your Dockers, huh?

Now here is Beck’s ode to Scientology, the peculiar Hip-Hop of 1000 BPM…



Persona(l) freedom can be yours, and quite soon, I’ll have you know.

This has been a musical view by Mozart Breath, disagreement is yours, if you do so choose to accept your mission, buster.

Cheerio!

Beck's "Mellow Gold" (A Sad Legacy?)

How does one dissect an album exactly? Is this going to be an easy process? I am going to try my best to explain as best I can, the beauty and truth that is "Mellow Gold." This is the major label debut of an mysterious elf simply known as Beck. This is probably one of the most bizarre albums to crack the Top Twenty on the Pop charts, but that's appropriate considering the fact that the musical mainstream was somewhat more experimental and diverse in 1994. While it is my opinion that quite a lot by Beck is unfortunately dated, making him very much a product of his time. "Mellow Gold" is indeed dated, but it is still just as entertaining as ever. The musical tricks that we associate with Beck today were very much a new phenomena in 1994. "Loser" is the opening track, and is a damn sight more lyrically impressive than Cobain's mumbling opus "Smell's Like Teen Spirit." The fun didn't stop with "Loser," as "Mellow Gold" successfully expresses creativity in Pop at its finest. Every musical idea is a successful experiment and all twelve tracks on this record bear repeated plays.

In the early days, when it appeared that Beck's mainstream success would be a short-lived affair, he was almost like a user-friendly Captain Beefheart, guaranteed NOT to scare your girlfriend. While he was ultimately destined to be a vacant Pop icon, the youthful Beck that greeted all of the mainstream attention that "Loser" brought him in the early '90's, was a rather difficult character to pinpoint exactly. He had an idyllic public relations technique at the beginning of his career, in which he in fact pretended to be an early twentieth-century hobo, and it worked, as the rags to riches saga always sells. Beck's lyrical content of the time period matched the sort of anything goes approach of a hobo hopping a freight train. He was examining down and out characters, and often prattled on about being unemployed. Much like David Lynch, Beck was ultimately spinning universal yarns, albeit, in a decidedly surrealist fashion.

One of the most haunting numbers on the record would have to be the eerie ballad known as "Whiskey Clone (Hotel City 1997)," and of which, we are celebrating the tenth anniversary. It's a spooky little number about hopelessness, convalescing, and the ability to talk with squirrels. The strange Folk tendencies continued on the Lo-Fi epic "Truck Driving Neighbors Down Stairs (Yellow Sweat)," and appropriately displaying his ragged lifestyle of the time period, the introduction to the song captures an actual verbal spat that took place between two drunken truckers in the apartment either below or above Beck. "Mellow Gold" is also a noted record that actually did something interesting with Hip-Hop, and that was to translate the traditional Talking Blues lyrical tradition to heavily beat-processed and sampled jams. There is even a sort of far away Psychedelic appeal on more laid back numbers like "Steal My Body Home" and "Black Hole." The Bob Dylan comparisons often seemed appropriate, as lyrics were very much the focus of Beck's early output. Never again did he display such lyrical inventiveness as was the case on his first three or four records, most of which were released in 1994.

In retrospect, certainly, "Beer Can" should have been a huge hit. It would have been a nice sequel to the "Loser" chaos of the time period. Another failed single was "Pay No Mind (Snoozer)," again, another potent Folk Ballad. "Pay No Mind (Snoozer)" was a rather curious follow-up to "Loser," and they seemed to have made a music video for the tune just for the hell of it, and by they, I mean Beck and longtime music video collaborator Steve Hanft. Again, as to why Beck did not have a few more hit tunes off this record is beyond me, as anything here is certainly more catchy than pretentious rubbish by The Smashing Pumpkins or Nine Inch Nails. But again, a lot of this had to do with the fact that Beck was a rather difficult bloke to market to the young people. He survived primarily based upon the strength of his songs and his ability to craft impressive albums as well. Only later did he become more so a "character" that was more palatable to mainstream audiences, or at this point, the new Adult Contemporary crowd.

I am also quite keen on "Nightmare Hippie Girl," a gentle Folk Ballad worthy of James Taylor. It is also always good fun to rock out to the Noise Rock of "Mother Fucker" as well, and do keep in mind that Beck had some pretty good pipes for Death Metal vocal stylings during this time period as well. And while I won't mention each individual track on this creatively fertile record, I will say that it is ultimately probably Beck's very best, and maybe always will be. Even during the time period in which this album was released, Beck was somehow an alternative to Alternative. Everything about his music seemed to be external, almost like Pop Art set to music, albeit, and as mentioned, with a wonderful surrealist twist. Being a bit of a musicologist even prior to being a Scientologist, ensured that Beck had some fantastic musical influences, and for a fan like myself, he was indeed a gateway to artists far superior than himself. So, here you have an album that stands on its own to this very day as a wonderful creative work of art in Pop. If you do not own this record, do indeed purchase it. And if it has in fact been lying rather doormat on your shelf, do indeed dust it off and give it a friendly listen.

And now, the Pop hits that never were...

Pay No Mind:



Beercan:

Top 10 Bands/Artists Of The 90s.

A lot of people look back at the 90s and think of the grunge era of the early 90s with Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Others think back on the late 90s and the teen pop of N Sync, Britney Spears, and the Backstreet Boys. This is definitly not the case for me.

My favorite 10 bands/artists that were arguably at their "peak" during the 90s (no particular order):

The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin is one of my very favorite albums of the decade and the rest of their 90s output is almost as great. In fact I think every single album they released in the 90s is a great album from A Priest Driven Ambulance to The Soft Bulletin. One of the best things about these albums is how different they are from each other. As different as all of their albums are they all share the same spark of creativity. The same sense of true psychedelia. They were pushing themselves forward into new territory throughout the decade. They never allowed themselves to get into a rut.

For someone who has yet to hear the Lips I would recommend starting out with The Soft Bulletin and 2002's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and then work your way back through gems like Clouds Taste Metallic. If you are more of a noisy rock guitar kind of guy or gal then you might want to start with A Priest Driven Ambulance and make your way towards the newer stuff.

Radiohead - I don't really like their debut album Pablo Honey much at all. To me it sounds too much like all the other bands in tired the "alternative" genre of the time. But The Bends is great and OK Computer is legendary. These two albums I consider to be so good that if I were ranking instead of listing my top 10 they would likely be #1. But choosing 10 is hard enough without putting them in order. My only reservation about placing them on this list is that I'm not really sure I consider the 90s to be the peak of Radiohead because I love their output from this decade so much.

Oasis - While this is an extremely unpopular choice among the type of indie snobs that this blog is aimed at (and I'm sure the other contributers on this site will be turning up their noses at this selection) I don't really care. I think they are an excellent band that writes insanely catchy tunes and certainly they were at their peak with 1994's Definitely Maybe and it's more poppy follow up 1995 (What's The Story) Morning Glory? I also like Be Here Now as much of a mess as it is. It's over the top nature I now find to be quite endearing. Especially in this era of emo nonsense.

Along with Noel Gallagher's perfect songwriting in the 90s his brother Liam brought the perfect rock voice to the band. To me Liam Gallagher is arguably the best rock singer of the decade. In fact I suppose I'm arguing it right now. His delivery can make the most insipid lyrics (and no doubt most of Oasis' lyrics are very insipid) and the most tired tune and turn them into something that grand. When he sings "Tonight I'm A Rock N Roll Star" I believe that he really means that. He's not being ironic, he really means it. To me this sort of attitude is what's missing from so much of the music of the past, I don't know, 30 years.

The Olivia Tremor Control - I didn't start listening to the Olivia Tremor Control until a few years ago but I now consider them to be near the very top of my list of great 90s bands. They've only released two albums and they came out in 1996 and 1999 so clearly they fit the criteria of their peak being in the 90s. While they only released two albums they were both so great and so epic in scope that I consider them to be one of my absolute favorite bands.

Their music is some of the most psychedelic pop rock music I've ever heard. There are seemingly infinite layers of sound going on in their tunes. The arrangements and instrumentation are always surprising. Certainly they take their cues from The Beach Boys and The Beatles and they often called retro but I never feel like I'm hearing any attempt to recreate the magic of an earlier time when I listen to them. I hear something far greater than just some recreation. I hear music that is timeless, from some place where time is just an idea.

If you are new to the Olivia Tremor Control I would start off with their first album 1996's Dusk At Cubist Castle and once that has been thoroughly digested move on to 1999's Black Foliage. I suggest this because if you get both of them at once I think you may be overwhelmed. Both of their albums deserves it's own gestation period so to speak. I think they are equally great with Dusk At Cubist Castle probably being easier to get into at first but Black Foliage being even more layered and intricate.

Beck - Beck was undoubtedly one of the most innovative and important artists of the 90s. 1994's Mellow Gold is widely known mostly for it's hit single "Loser" but it's actually filled with great inventive tracks that have a delicious DIY type weirdness to them. If you want to get really weird and really DIY with Beck then you should check out his lesser known album Stereopathetic Soulmanure which is brimful with insanity.

Of course Beck became known as more than a one hit wonder with 1996's Odelay which was more polished than his earlier work and won much wide acclaim. While my friend Mozart Breath doesn't care for it much I think it's quite a wonderful album and it holds up quite well with time.

Believe it or not I'm one of the few Beck fans who doesn't love 1998's Mutations. For some mysterious reason I've just never been able to get into that album.

Primal Scream - To me Primal Scream is one of the most underrated bands in the world. It doesn't seem like many people here in the US listen to them or even know who they are. Admittedly their last couple of albums haven't been mind blowing but Screamadelica and Vanishing Point are two of my very favorite albums of the 1990s. 2000's XTRMNTR is awesome too, but I'll keep this focused on the 90s, alright?

As you may gather from my list I'm quite the "psychedelic" music fan. Not psychedelic as if it's some specific genre of music from the 60s but in the sense that I enjoy music that tickles the brain a bit. Using this wide open to interpretation definition of psychedelic I'm not sure there are many albums that are more psychedelic than Screamadelica and Vanishing Point. Primal Scream's music is often a trip, even if you're not tripping. Although that may help your appreciation.

Spiritualized - Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space is an album of pure Godliness. It's one of my top 10 albums of all time and it's the main reason I am including them on this list. Like Primal Scream I feel that they have lost the edge that made them great with their recent albums but back in 1997 not too many could touch them.

Their earlier albums are fantastic too and I know they are preferred by some hardcore Spiritualized fans but to me Ladies & Gents is some sort of perfect culmination. Spiritualized is another British band that is too often overlooked here in the US.

Blur - Yes I've got both Oasis AND Blur on my list. Got a bit of a hard on for the "Brit Pop" do I? Aye. Blur is a bit hit and miss for me but I really like a lot of their stuff and I find myself enjoying them more and more as time goes by. I prefer their late 90s albums Blur and 13.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is just a tremendous album. There's something about it that's magical and timeless. While I'll always choose Olivia Tremor Control over Neutral Milk Hotel when it comes to a clash of the Elephant 6 titans (which I'm sure will be an event at the next Wrestlemania.) I really love both of them for different reasons. I'm not usually someone who cares much about lyrics but Jeff Mangum has a way with words that really draws me in. It's actually a lyric from On Avery Island that may be my all time favorite lyric. It's "How Strange Is It To Be Anything At All." Somehow that sums it all up for me.

Ween - An extremely underrated band. Too many people think they are merely a "joke" band. While some of their songs are funny, they are far more bizarre than hilarious. Bizarre being much more interesting to me. They are the combination of extreme musical talent with even more extreme imagination. This combines to create masterpiece albums like 1997's The Mollusk. If you've never given Ween a real shot before I suggest you really listen to their music with an open mind starting with the aforementioned The Mollusk.

You may have noticed I've named quite a few albums from 1997 on this list and for some reason quite a few albums from that year really stand out for me above all others. Definitely my favorite year of the 90s as far as music goes with albums like Radiohead's OK Computer, Spiritualized's Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, Primal Scream's Vanishing Point, Ween's The Mollusk, The Flaming Lips' Zaireeka, Bob Dylan's Time Out Of Mind, and Cornershop's When I Was Born For The 7th Time.

Beck: Then and Now, Oh My Brothers.

Originally, he was a mysterious youth with a vague past, and even vaguer in his explanations of his life and times prior to having success in mainstream Pop. Of course, "Loser" was the song and supposed lifestyle that many members of the Generation known as X latched onto. And even if Beck was evasive about any significant aspect of his life, and especially in early interviews, he always made clear that he was very much a hard worker, so the slacker tag never did stick. The retro tag during the time of "Odelay" only lasted for as long as Beck wanted it to, before then moving onto Prince-style antics on "Midnite Vultures" or a sappy James Taylor-esque performer on "Sea Change." In more recent years he's been treading familiar ground, which for Beck, is genuinely a first. Albums like "Guero" and "The Information" have been heard earlier in Beck's musical catalog but better.

He has always sold good numbers in terms of record sales, and his live performances often sellout. What is frustrating for those of us who enjoy our Pop music with artistic leanings, is that it appears that Beck's more experimental and worthwhile recorded output is very much behind him, and fans of his current incarnation are left with corny Dance-Pop or bland Folk Ballads. It is interesting to think that "Sea Change" was made by the same man, who roughly a decade earlier created a bizarre little gem called "Golden Feelings." On that record, he was an effortless lyrical master and this is easily demonstrated on the "Loser" single, which was recorded around the same time period. Beck's weirdness with lyrics once carried weight, but now only feel like an anchor or creative crutch. It is unfortunate that some of his younger fans may not be familiar with the great collaborators and producers with which Beck worked, long before hooking up with the Dust Brothers or Nigel Godrich.

Beck's 1994 Experimental Noise epic "Stereopathetic Soulmanure" was recorded largely in a little studio in Los Angeles located right next to a car repair shop and the producers of said record were two gentleman named Tom Grimley and Gus Hudson. Fans of the early Jon Spencer outing Pussy Galore will want to delve into this record. Even Beck's eerie Acoustic Blues record "One Foot In The Grave" recorded on the precious and dainty K Records label out of Washington state is another example of his once lyrical brilliance and ability to essentially wing it, yet still create something that is musically worthwhile. As I find noodling around with The Dust Brothers on hi-tech computer gadgets looking for a perfect Disco beat, is something that does not necessarily make for the most potent music ever made. Clever? Yes. Novelty? Unfortunately, yes again.

"Mellow Gold" was Beck's third record to be released in 1994, not counting a peculiar 10" record release entitled "A Western Harvest Field By Moonlight," which is a record that is essentially a mix of what both "Stereopathetic Soulmanure" and "One Foot In The Grave" had to offer. "Mellow Gold," however, was the first great big mainstream album by Beck, it was also his best. Nothing had changed in his musical bag of tricks and everything came to fruition on this record, a record that appropriately begins with the massively successful "Loser" single. Beck worked with some interesting characters on this record, including Hip Hop producer Carl Stephenson and the two men behind the now mostly defunct Bong Load Custom Records label.

All of this brings me to the Beck that we know and maybe not necessarily love today. I believe the commercializing of 1996's "Odelay" was truly the beginning of the end of Beck as a amazingly creative force in music, a record that in retrospect is clearly overrated. He eventually de-evolved into a goofy Vegas act in a live setting, albeit, a Beck concert is still a great experience and at this point, probably the best way to interact with his music. He also became just another face in major music publications, a fashion model of sorts. In recent years he has championed many of the Hipster elite, such as The White Stripes and Devendra Bernhard, which only further obscures his early musical genius. But ultimately, do not take my word for it, compare and contrast the following songs from two very distinctly different time periods in Beck's music...

Then:



And Now: