YMMV / Beck (Musician)

• And You Thought It Would Fail: According to an interview with Vulture in 2012, a major label executive told him that releasing Odelay was "a huge mistake", and Beck spent a few months thinking that he'd "blown it forever". It sold over two million copies in the U.S. alone, produced three sizable hit singles, won Beck two Grammy Awards, and received great reviews from critics, proving to the world that he was more than just a one-hit wonder.
• Archive Panic: 12 publicly available albums, 2 of which were released on obscure indie labels and are now unavailable on most streaming services, make up the mainline Beck canon, but to say there's a lot out there (mostly before Mellow Gold)'s an exaggeration. Allow us to explain some the most important of these more obscure releases for you:
  • Firstly we have Banjo Story - Somewhat of a Cult Classic, this is much less obscure than other albums outside of the main canon, but has never been actively acknowledged by the man himself, nor has he ever played anything from it live. (Though some songs from it were re-recorded for 1994's Stereopathic Soulmanure).
  • Beck, Like the Beer - Whilst mostly lo-fi folk, it indulges in some more noisy territories at point, meaning that it's arguably the origin point of Beck's trademark eclecticism
  • Fuck Iowa - Beck's first New Sound Album, being a mix of Lo-fi Punk Rock , Heavy Metal and Noise Rock , going way out of his earlier, gentler style. Also notable for being the first appearance of Loser.
  • Beck and Dava - Coming a year after Fuck Iowa and quite a few more tapes of that style, this album then swerved deep into Alternative Country (which Beck would revisit on Stereopathic and Odelay) and Folk territory, obviously YMMV (because what page did you think we were on, trivia?) but this is probably one of, if not the most important of these early tapes, as it shows his restlessness as an artist, to the point where he'd find a style, spend a year honing it, make multiple demos establishing you as the 'Noisy Punk Metal guy' only to then go and do full-on Alt-Country and folk. Whilst Beck would go and mix the two up on later releases, this sharp left turn shows the true birth of his obsession with the New Sound Album.
  • Whilst these are the key ones, there's at least ten more out there, with new ones being found and ripped onto Youtube on a regular basis.
  • Recently, he claims that he's only released Less Than a THIRD of his full discography, which means that the full Beck discography could possibly rival the quantity of the likes of Frank Zappa.
• Broken Base: The Beck fandom isn't broken per se, but it's a hard time getting them to agree on anything, especially his work from 2005 to 2019, which is either his first signs of declining quality or some of his best work.
  • Golden Feelings and Stereopathic Soulmanure? Underrated, unique albums fully deserving of their status as Cult Classics or overly experimental, somewhat irritating albums, that try so hard to experiment that they forget to be genuinely good? (This applies more to Golden Feelings than Stereopathic, which has a much less loose and experimental sound).
  • Guero: A top-tier, hook-filled return to the sound Beck had in his prime, and a welcome Lighter and Softer bridge between Sea Change and The Information, both of which are widely considered to be his bleakest albums or a So Okay, It's Average collection of standard Beck songs that are trying way too hard to be Odelay 2 with some highlights?
  • The Information: an overlong, pretentious album that's trying way too hard to mean something, or a Underappreciated Masterpiece with a truly unique sound and feel?
  • Modern Guilt's either a catchy, smart, introspective piece of Stripped Back Alternative Rock, which benefits from it's short length after the last couple of albums were rather bloated. Or a boring, lifeless album which takes itself far too seriously with a sound that doesn't fit it's lyrics? (The existence of a Acoustic Version further breaks the base over if Danger Mouse's production was for the better or for the worst.) Basically, if you asked a bunch of Beck fans to rank his albums, it's either going to be in the top 5 or the bottom 5.
  • Morning Phase: A beautiful, bittersweet piece of folk-rock which stands out on it's own terms, or a So Okay, It's Average album trapped in the shadow of it's spiritual predecessor, Sea Change? Also a minor example of Critical Dissonance - critics fawned over the album to the point that it received the 2014 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
  • Colors got hit with this HARD. Either it's a fun, catchy-as-hell spiritual throwback to Midnite Vultures, after over a decade of Beck's sound being Darker and Edgier while still breaking new ground for Beck, a collection of mediocre pop songs, or his worst album which finally proved that Beck's best years were far behind him.
• Covered Up:
  • "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime", a cover of The Korgis, famously used in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Also, he covered "Diamond Dogs" by David Bowie.
  • B-Side "Halo Of Gold" is a cover of a Skip Spence demo, originally titled "Halo Of Gold (Furry Heroine)" - the original was one of several unfinished song sketches included as bonus tracks on a reissue of Spence's Oar, while the cover was originally released on a Spence Cover Album More Oar.
  • On the receiving end, Beck wrote "Feel Good Time" with William Orbit, but deciding not to use it, allowed P!nk to record the song using the backing track he and Orbit had already prepared. The original Beck version leaked out later and is nowhere near as well known as the Pink version. To a lesser extent, Johnny Cash 's cover of "Rowboat" ensured more interest in "Stereopathetic Soulmanure", which was otherwise an obscure album.
• Epic Riff: "E-Pro", "Rental Car", "Milk and Honey", "Pressure Zone" are all prime examples of this, and to a lesser extent, "Loser."
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Fans of Damon Albarn (of Blur and Gorillaz fame) and Beck tend to walk hand in hand. Especially as they've now Worked togther.
  • Cage the Elephant are another example, with the band listing him as a major influence, many fans of both artists saying that their album "Thank You, Happy Birthday" is pretty close to what a full Noise Rock Beck album would sound like. Becomes an example of Promoted Fanboy in 2019 when the two wrote a song and co-headlined a tour together.
  • Fans of Beck's Darker and Edgier phase of the early 2000's and Radiohead tend to get on well too, probably partly due to Nigel Godrich producing two of his albums of that period.
• Growing the Beard: Though the albums before them have their diehard fans, the general consensus amongst the Beck fandom is that he did this with Odelay (and to a lesser extent Mellow Gold and One Foot in the Grave) , keeping true to his experimental and surreal roots whilst successfully wrapping them in a more consistent and concise box. Some, however, would say that the Beard only grew in the early 2000's (when, ironically enough, he briefly had a beard), with more mature lyrical themes and sincere nature, especially when compared to the irony laced Word Salad of his previous work.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The "Let's make it out, baby" line in "Where It's At" sounds a lot like Damon Albarn, which is pretty funny to think about as they've actually collaborated with the song "Valley of The Pagans".
• Misaimed Fandom: As mentioned on the main page, Beck does not like the fact that "Loser" was portrayed by the media as a slacker anthem when he had spent several years being homeless, working for hours at low-paying jobs to survive.
  Beck: Slacker my ass. I never had any slack. I was working a $4-an-hour job trying to stay alive. That slacker stuff is for people who have the time to be depressed about everything.
• Nightmare Fuel: The loud distorted yell in "Where It's At", which sounds extremely inhuman and more like a tortured robot. The vast majority of Golden Feelings could also count as this, as a wide amount of the album's sound is nothing but deranged screams and somewhat disturbing lyrics.
• Sampled Up: Probably the biggest example in his career are the snippets from an ultra-obscure 1969 educational record called Sex for Teens (Where It's At) sprinkled into "Where It's At" ("What about those who swing both ways? AC/DCs?", "We're all part of the total scene!", "That's beautiful, Dad"). Copies of the vinyl sell for ridiculous amounts because of the Colbert Bump it got from the song.
  • Also notable from that song is the "That was a good drum break" line, which is sampled from The Frogs' "I Don't Care If U Disrespect Me (Just So You Love Me)", but is easy to take as an original line, since the vocals sound quite similar to Beck's.
• Pop-Culture Isolation: While considered influential in alt-rock circles, most casual listeners recognize him as "the guy who did "Loser" and incorrectly refer to him as a One-Hit Wonder.
  • When Beck won Album of the Year at the 2014 Grammy Awards, many younger fans took to Twitter, making statements such as "Who is Beck?" and "Why did that Beck guy beat Beyoncé at the Grammys?".
• Refrain from Assuming: "Where It's At" is often mislabeled as "Two Turntables and a Microphone".
• Signature Song: "Loser" is far and away his most popular song. "Where It's At" is a strong runner-up.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • "Up all Night" sounds a lot like Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling".
  • "Beautiful Way" on Midnite Vultures is also this to "Countess of Hong Kong", a song from The Velvet Underground. However, could just be coincidence due to how obscure the latter song is.
  • Also on Midnite Vultures, "Debra" is essentially a serenade set to David Bowie's "Win". And it's GLORIOUS