Driving > Disco

#MusicMonday - 8.1.10 - Beck

Everyone's favorite hillbilly from outer space...

I had a decent mockup article written (in my head) that compared Beck to another one of my favorite artists, the Black Crowes. In my opinion, they share a lot of common ground. Musically speaking, they don't really remind me of each other, but in other aspects they seem similar to me.

Mention TBC to anyone and they'll probably say "I liked that one song they wrote...Hard to Handle." Despite the fact that Otis Redding actually wrote that song, its true that that was a big hit for the Crowes...from their 1990 release Shake Your Money Maker. Compare this to one Beck Hansen. Mention him to your average person on the street and they'll say "oh yeah, Loser," referring to his "breakout hit" from his 1994 release Mellow Gold. (this is where I planned to also compare their touring schedules, writing processes and sales figures, but I could not find concrete evidence for all of these items - enough for a nice little table - so I cut all that...sorry)

The thing that makes the above comparisons tie into each other is that for both Beck and the Black Crowes, those two songs, while notable in their respective histories, were basically footnotes in their careers. The Robinson brothers' band has a enourmous catalogue, that will have to have it's own post at some point in the future to be fully appreciated. Beck has eleven studio albums under his belt and has similarly produced a metric ton of content, only to be remembered by a one word song from almost 20 years ago.

While I'll be the first to say that there are a lot of "artists" out there whose entire musical career should be erased from the collective consciousness of human kind, there are a few, such as Beck, who rise to prominence from a song; said song gets killed on the radio (the whole "blessing/curse" phenomenon); general public gets sick of said artist and puts them behind the back burner, effectively rendering them dead to them, in the music world at least.

Here is "Elevator Music," from 2006's The Information. One of my new favorite songs and albums...




And how could any Beck post be complete without a listen to "Beercan?"