The Official Needles and Grooves 1001 Album Generator Project (aka Preachin’ about the Preachers if today’s selection sucks)

TrainFan73 said:
David Fricke sure liked it:
www.rollingstone.com

Sea Change

Check out our album review of Artist's Sea Change on Rolling Stone.com.
www.rollingstone.com www.rollingstone.com

Seems pretty spot on.

Beck is an interesting musician. He seems to be in a pop phase right now but most of the rest of his career switches between these modern folk things that recall other eras/scenes and his hipster collage of sound thing. Even when he’s not at the top of his game, he’s interesting. Hell he even managed to get the Black Krys to make an interesting album
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TrainFan73 said:
There’s no byline in the pitchfork review, but they um didn’t like it.
pitchfork.com

Beck: Sea Change

It's easy to romanticize Beck as the scruffy wannabe who lived on friends' couches for a year, recording a ...
pitchfork.com pitchfork.com
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As much as I hate reviews, at some point or another, we all become critics, especially if there's a record we ridiculously love and want to spread that love to others or there's an LP we can't get behind at all and want to save our friends from a heinous aural fate.

I'm a dumb guy so I roll with that simpleton methodology - if it's music you dig, it's great. If it's music you don't dig, it's great for someone else out there.

I'm not a Beck head but I really like this record.
 
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Yer Ol' Uncle D said:
As much as I hate reviews, at some point or another, we all become critics, especially if there's a record we ridiculously love and want to spread that love to others or there's an LP we can't get behind at all and want to save our friends from a heinous aural fate.

I'm a dumb guy so I roll with that simpleton methodology - if it's music you dig, it's great. If it's music you don't dig, it's great for someone else out there.

I'm not a Beck head but I really like this record.
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Preach on brother!
 
Whiteout75 said:
So ok, that was pretty great. I had heard a few of the songs before but this was still surprisingly earnest and sad, no tongue-in-cheek ironic ennui anywhere.
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I'd also recommend Morning Phase, which is kind of the musical counterpart to Sea Change, but from a few years later. I actually prefer MP as, for some reason, I was never a huge Sea Change fan.
 
TrainFan73 said:
I figured you would like Beck does sad slow Radiohead.
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I think often personality, or more accurately artistic personality, can be an issue. I find that Beck in a lot of ways rubs me up the wrong way. Being sad and slow doesn’t change that. I gave a few a go that were highly rated because people I respect loved him. Wasn’t for me, this was probably the closest.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
100% agree with Joe here. I think of Beck as an utterly forgettable, uninteresting musician, who makes some occasionally interesting music. What is Beck's persona/narrative/defining characteristic? No clue.

I respect when artists try to remove ego from the equation and let the work speak for itself, but I also see this particular artist as a quasi-anonymous blank. I think of him as someone whose albums get attention specifically because everyone thinks that everyone else thinks that you're supposed to give Beck albums attention.

And to quote the late, great @gouis, IMO that's a whole lot of attention to devote to someone whose work is for the most part unremarkably pleasant and is generally just "fine."
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@gouis died?!?
 
Indymisanthrope said:
100% agree with Joe here. I think of Beck as an utterly forgettable, uninteresting musician, who makes some occasionally interesting music. What is Beck's persona/narrative/defining characteristic? No clue.

I respect when artists try to remove ego from the equation and let the work speak for itself, but I also see this particular artist as a quasi-anonymous blank. I think of him as someone whose albums get attention specifically because everyone thinks that everyone else thinks that you're supposed to give Beck albums attention.

And to quote the late, great @gouis, IMO that's a whole lot of attention to devote to someone whose work is for the most part unremarkably pleasant and is generally just "fine."
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I think Beck put out some excellent albums, even as someone who's not a big fan. I especially like the weird cover albums project he was doing with a revolving crew of musicians. For a while, in the late 90s/early 00s, I do think he was seen as some savior of cool on mainstream radio, but most haven't paid any attention to his many many weird projects. I'm not going to listen to them regularly, but I'm all for more musicians who just go and fuck around creatively in a way that they seem to enjoy. Occasionally I might enjoy it too. It's better than 90% of the over produced pop music that sounds the same as everything else, because it's at least trying to carve out something with a dose of originality. Beck fits in that camp for me. So I see him more as a musician trying out different ways to be creative with music and not caring so much any more if that succeeds or fails.
 
I don’t know, his ability to experiment at will and be successful doing may result in a few albums that are less than great, but the ability for him to maintain relevance while doing that and getting a sizeable audience to follow along is an important thing for music.

The more we have artists like Bowie, Beck, and King Gizz that seem to never want to stick to the status quo… the better.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
100% agree with Joe here. I think of Beck as an utterly forgettable, uninteresting musician, who makes some occasionally interesting music. What is Beck's persona/narrative/defining characteristic? No clue.

I respect when artists try to remove ego from the equation and let the work speak for itself, but I also see this particular artist as a quasi-anonymous blank. I think of him as someone whose albums get attention specifically because everyone thinks that everyone else thinks that you're supposed to give Beck albums attention.

And to quote the late, great @gouis, IMO that's a whole lot of attention to devote to someone whose work is for the most part unremarkably pleasant and is generally just "fine."
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Kinda disagree with this too. There was a time in the early 90s where the shit Beck was doing melding hip-hop/rock/folk (but in a good way) was on par with probably only The Beastie Boys in coolness factor. His persona was being cool as fuck and he pulled it off well. I even think he showed some growth too. The tropicalia stuff he did with Mutations and “Dead Weight” was brilliant and was right around the Time Air and Stereolab were leaning into their “space age bachelor pad” eras. His hipster take on James Brown funk with Midnight Vultures were all at the forefront of hipness. Over the past 15-20 years he hasn’t had much new to say and has repeated himself to varying degrees of effectiveness during that time frame but throughout most of the 90s Beck was a touchstone for many who enjoyed alternative culture from that time.

Beck was kind of a cypher in that he gathered all of these cool things together and turned it into something palatable for the masses.
 
Bohnjaggs said:
This is honestly how I feel about Sea Change

Beck is my all-time favorite artist and Guero and Morning Phase are pretty much neck and neck for what I consider his best album. And maybe Mutations after that.
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Just out of curiosity what album really got you into Beck? I think a lot of times how we regard certain albums is dependent on which album we first fell in love with.
 
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