Beck Hansen's major label debut, Mellow Gold, and the ubiquitous MTV single "Loser" introduced him to the world, but the quirky nature of his slacker poet lyrics and bizarre instrumentation led many to assume that Beck was a flash-in-the-pan one-hit wonder. Odelay proved them wrong, winning two Grammies, garnering rarely-awarded perfect reviews from Rolling Stone and Spin magazines, and selling over two million records. Beck has been compared to Prince for his instrumental proficiency and to Bob Dylan (think "Subterranean Homesick Blues") for his stream-of-consciousness nonsense lyrics, but the truth is that Beck is unique in that he just really doesn't sound like anyone else. Equally at home with rock and rap, jazz and blues, hip-hop and bossa nova, there is no style of music that is off limits, and no limit to where he will go to explore his musical art. I remember watching Beck at the Grammies singing/rapping his hit "Where It's At" in a powder blue suit and asking myself if he was serious. The truth is that all of Beck's music is serious and none of it is.
What does it mean to have "a devil's haircut in my mind?" My favorite thing about Beck is that you can read as much or as little into his lyrics as you want and still enjoy the music. Odelay is in my opinion the only Beck album that seems to have a blend of musical styles in equal proportion, so you can rock out on "Devil's Haircut" and "Novacane," mellow out on the smooth, quiet tones of "Jack-Ass" and "Ramshackle," or get your groove on with "Where It's At," "The New Pollution" or "Sissyneck."
Then of course, there's my personal favorite "Lord Only Knows," which has the great singalong chorus "Lord only knows it's getting late/Your senses are gone so don't you hesitate/Give yourself a call/Let your bottom dollars fall/Throwing your two-bit cares down the drain." At the time that Odelay came out I was a college student working something like 35 hours a week and my girlfriend and I had just broken up, so I had a lot of two-bit cares. This album helped me take my mind off my problems for a while and just enjoy some really unique music, and it still has a special place in my collection because of that.
Oh, and by the way, my girlfriend and I got back together eventually. We've been married eight years.
1 comment:
"At the time that Odelay came out I was a college student working something like 35 hours a week and my girlfriend and I had just broken up, so I had a lot of two-bit cares. This album helped me take my mind off my problems for a while and just enjoy some really unique music, and it still has a special place in my collection because of that. Oh, and by the way, my girlfriend and I got back together eventually. We've been married eight years."
Why you wanna bring up old stuff? Still, it's good to be reminded you were miserable without me.
Seriously, this album is alright. I can dig it.
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