Showing posts with label beck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beck. Show all posts
31 December, 2009
I'm Into CB's Best of 2009
Record of the Year:
St. Vincent - Actor [4AD]
As much as I loved St. Vincent's Marry Me LP, it was haunted with that most dreaded of A&R buzz words, "potential." Songs like "Your Lips Are Red" hinted at a musical landscape just outside the scope of the debut. Well, here it is. Actor is the most confident, fully-realized musical anything this year. From the astounding lurching factory-pop of "Marrow" to the elegant strings-and-organ build of "Black Rainbow," Actor is full of moments of excruciating tension and liberatory release, playing with texture and drama in unexpected and endlessly satisfying ways.
Honorable Mention
Real Estate - Real Estate [Woodsist]
No Age - Losing Feeling [Sub Pop]
Song of the Year:
Real Estate - Beach Comber [from Real Estate, out on Woodsist]
Representing both the emergence and the pinnacle of the Deadbeat Summer of 2009, when suddenly everybody was listening to something called "beach music" without being able to explain to anyone quite what that means. Real Estate have it down: 60's psych-pop rhythms rendered lazy and hazy, chiming guitars that noodle pleasantly around an effortless vocal hook. Thankfully escaping from its own shadow, it's just as home soundtracking a bleak winter's day spent indoors as a stoned shoreside barbecue.
Honorable Mention
Animal Collective - What Would I Want? Sky [from Fall Be Kind, out on Domino]
[Download][IGIF]
Washed Out - Belong [from High Times, out on Mirror Universe]
[Download][Fader]
Video of the Year:
The Presets - If I Know You [Dir. Eva Husson]
Maybe it's that this video evokes some of that old "weird LA" mystique that I thought had evaporated in the late 90's, maybe it's that the city's landscape just lends itself to surrealist dance spasms, or maybe the Presets' video for "If I Know You" is just so otherworldly I can't stop watching it. Over, and over, and over again.
Cover of the Year
Franz Ferdinand - Womanizer (Live on BBC Radio One Live Lounge) (Britney Spears)
Following up last year's awesome Gwen Stephani cover, Franz Ferdinand chose "the best song out in the last few months," Britney Spears' "Womanizer" for their cover on BBC One's Live Lounge. It's pretty much what you'd expect from Tonight-era Franz, but the raw punk-jam recording adds enough spunk and vitriol to make this cover some of their best 2009 output.
The 5th Annual Beck Hansen Award for Coolest Thing Beck Did this Year:
Record Club
A project like Beck's Record Club, covering seminal albums from scratch in a day seems audacious, but opening it by taking on the Velvet Underground and Nico seems downright arrogant. That is, until you hear what he does to standards like "Run Run Run."
The 2009 Jack White WTF I Thought You Were Cool Award
The Dead Weather
Considering they're mostly made up of reigning Boring-Ass-Butt-Rock World Champions the Raconteurs, it's not surprising that the latest Jack White vehicle just plain sucks. Not even the Kills' VV (the admittedly chop-laden Allison Mosshart) can save the colossal misfire of Horehound (seriously, that's the name of their fucking album). The Dead Weather are all posturing, spitting, artificial grit from the mixing board. I had always thought Jack White strove to create a world where great rock'n'roll would rule again, but the disservice done to the genre by this stillborn lump of formulaic rawk could set the Revolution back decades.
St. Vincent - Actor [4AD]
As much as I loved St. Vincent's Marry Me LP, it was haunted with that most dreaded of A&R buzz words, "potential." Songs like "Your Lips Are Red" hinted at a musical landscape just outside the scope of the debut. Well, here it is. Actor is the most confident, fully-realized musical anything this year. From the astounding lurching factory-pop of "Marrow" to the elegant strings-and-organ build of "Black Rainbow," Actor is full of moments of excruciating tension and liberatory release, playing with texture and drama in unexpected and endlessly satisfying ways.
Honorable Mention
Real Estate - Real Estate [Woodsist]
No Age - Losing Feeling [Sub Pop]
Song of the Year:
Real Estate - Beach Comber [from Real Estate, out on Woodsist]
Representing both the emergence and the pinnacle of the Deadbeat Summer of 2009, when suddenly everybody was listening to something called "beach music" without being able to explain to anyone quite what that means. Real Estate have it down: 60's psych-pop rhythms rendered lazy and hazy, chiming guitars that noodle pleasantly around an effortless vocal hook. Thankfully escaping from its own shadow, it's just as home soundtracking a bleak winter's day spent indoors as a stoned shoreside barbecue.
Honorable Mention
Animal Collective - What Would I Want? Sky [from Fall Be Kind, out on Domino]
[Download][IGIF]
Washed Out - Belong [from High Times, out on Mirror Universe]
[Download][Fader]
Video of the Year:
The Presets - If I Know You [Dir. Eva Husson]
Maybe it's that this video evokes some of that old "weird LA" mystique that I thought had evaporated in the late 90's, maybe it's that the city's landscape just lends itself to surrealist dance spasms, or maybe the Presets' video for "If I Know You" is just so otherworldly I can't stop watching it. Over, and over, and over again.
Cover of the Year
Franz Ferdinand - Womanizer (Live on BBC Radio One Live Lounge) (Britney Spears)
Following up last year's awesome Gwen Stephani cover, Franz Ferdinand chose "the best song out in the last few months," Britney Spears' "Womanizer" for their cover on BBC One's Live Lounge. It's pretty much what you'd expect from Tonight-era Franz, but the raw punk-jam recording adds enough spunk and vitriol to make this cover some of their best 2009 output.
The 5th Annual Beck Hansen Award for Coolest Thing Beck Did this Year:
Record Club
A project like Beck's Record Club, covering seminal albums from scratch in a day seems audacious, but opening it by taking on the Velvet Underground and Nico seems downright arrogant. That is, until you hear what he does to standards like "Run Run Run."
Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico "Run Run Run" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.
The 2009 Jack White WTF I Thought You Were Cool Award
The Dead Weather
Considering they're mostly made up of reigning Boring-Ass-Butt-Rock World Champions the Raconteurs, it's not surprising that the latest Jack White vehicle just plain sucks. Not even the Kills' VV (the admittedly chop-laden Allison Mosshart) can save the colossal misfire of Horehound (seriously, that's the name of their fucking album). The Dead Weather are all posturing, spitting, artificial grit from the mixing board. I had always thought Jack White strove to create a world where great rock'n'roll would rule again, but the disservice done to the genre by this stillborn lump of formulaic rawk could set the Revolution back decades.
29 August, 2009
Video: New Beck Record Club - European Son
Beck's Record Club comes to end of its first project, posting the final track from The Velvet Underground and Nico, a laid-back, sprawling rendition of "European Son."
Also, someone--very possibly from Bolachas Gratis--posted an mp3 version of the entire record club version of the record, which you can snag here.
Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico "European Son" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.
Also, someone--very possibly from Bolachas Gratis--posted an mp3 version of the entire record club version of the record, which you can snag here.
22 August, 2009
02 August, 2009
New Beck Record Club - Heroin
At laaast, Beck & co. tackle the unparalleled "Heroin," from The Velvet Underground and Nico.
And I just got a bit of a personal bombshell, and I don't have any speakers attached to my computer at the moment, so I'll leave you with it and then find out if it's any good later.
And I just got a bit of a personal bombshell, and I don't have any speakers attached to my computer at the moment, so I'll leave you with it and then find out if it's any good later.
Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico "Heroin" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.
25 July, 2009
New Beck Record Club - All Tomorrow's Parties
It's been a slow week for music consumption, mostly due to an excess of crap coming out this week despite really none of it being in any way compelling ("Walkabout" is boring, period).
So, yeah, Beck continues on his quest to pound out The Velvet Underground and Nico a week at a time.
So, yeah, Beck continues on his quest to pound out The Velvet Underground and Nico a week at a time.
Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico "All Tomorrow's Parties" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.
18 July, 2009
10 July, 2009
Video: New Beck Record Club - 'Venus in Furs'
Though the other sections of the new Beck.com may be kinda lame (I mean, really.), the Record Club keeps chuggin' along with its consistently awesome take on The Velvet Underground and Nico. This week it's the dirgy "Venus in Furs."
From Beck.com:
Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico "Venus In Furs" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.
From Beck.com:
Possibly one of the first, if not the first goth song ever? For the occasion, we dragged out the sitar, Nigel took a bow to his white SG and Joey played a flute bought on the street in Japan fondly referred to as 'The Dying Goose.'
02 July, 2009
Video: New Beck Record Club - 'Femme Fatale'
Beck and friends have posted their next Velvet Underground and Nico track, doing his best to fill Nico's shoes on "Femme Fatale."
Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico "Femme Fatale" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.
29 June, 2009
Video: New Beck Record Club - The Velvet Underground and Nico's 'I'm Waiting for the Man'
The 2nd installment in Beck's increasingly awesome Record Club is the next track from the seminal The Velvet Underground and Nico, the swaggering "I'm Waiting for the Man."
And I promise today will be content-heavy to make up for the summer lazies.
21 June, 2009
Video: Beck Covers 'The Velvet Underground and Nico'!
So that Beck Hansen guy has been tinkering with his web site recently, and the first new feature to appear is a totally awesome idea he's calling the Record Club.
From Beck's site:
Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico 'Sunday Morning' from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.
From Beck's site:
"An informal meeting of various people to record an album in a day. An album will be chosen to be reinterpreted and used as a framework. Nothing rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track will be uploaded once a week on beck.com as well as through the web sites of those involved with the project."To start things off on an appropriately sacrilegious note, Beck and some friends--including legendary producer Nigel Godrich and an Icelandic guy named Thorunn Magnusdottir--decided to take on the timeless The Velvet Underground and Nico.
"After lengthy deliberation and coming close to covering Digital Underground's Sex Packets, all present voted in favor of the 'other' Underground..."
15 April, 2009
Islands Cover Beck Not-So-But-Kinda-Rarity
As you may or may not know, Beck reissued his Mellow Gold-era K-realeased odds 'n ends collection One Foot in the Grave on Interscope yesterday.
To celebrate, Islands posted a cover of "Cyanide Breath Mint," off the aforementioned record, eschewing the original's fucked-up accoustic for a more full-throated... well, Islands song.
mp3-> Islands - Cyanide Breath Mint (Beck Cover)
[Download]
To celebrate, Islands posted a cover of "Cyanide Breath Mint," off the aforementioned record, eschewing the original's fucked-up accoustic for a more full-throated... well, Islands song.
mp3-> Islands - Cyanide Breath Mint (Beck Cover)
[Download]
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