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Posts Tagged “beck”

videodrone

Marnie Stern Fights For Your Love


Guitar-wielding hypermusician Marnie Stern takes on the world in the video for "Ruler," which is part Rocky homage, part absurdist superwoman fantasy, and 100% "clip that is one of the few things that made me smile all day." Cameos by Upper East Side butchers, flaunting of dogwalking (dog-jogging?) skills, and rubber chickens in peril all add up to a ridiculously fun addition to the pantheon of "taking to the streets of New York City" videos that previously included the Go! Team's Pac-Mantastic "Junior Kickstart," the end of Ray Parker Jr.'s video for "Ghostbusters," and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's "Flavor." [Pitchfork.TV] More »

2:30 PM on Tue Nov 11 2008
By Maura Johnston
186 views, 7 comments

Latest by Lucas Jensen: @Maura Johnston: [www.filmathens.net] That's the Sprockets website. more »

snap judgments

Paul McCartney Is Being Very Charitable To Duffy

Come November, the UK charity War Child will release a new all-covers album, Heroes, as a way to raise funds for its efforts to protect children in conflict-ravaged areas around the globe. So far, the tracklisting is as such: Duffy covering "Live & Let Die"; Hot Chip re-recording Joy Division's "Transmission"; Beck taking on Bob Dylan's "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat"; the Kooks doing whatever it is they do to the Kinks' "Victoria"; and Rufus Wainwright constructing a medley from two songs off Brian Wilson's Smile. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Wainwright track is the one that piques my interest most; while Paul McCartney said that Duffy's version of the Wings track was "great—I was really impressed," I'm a bit, shall we say, skeptical. I get that she's cute and can rock a romper onstage, but how much longer must we all suffer through this "next Dusty" charade? (And who picked her to be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this week, anyway? Is this season's musical theme "artists who don't sound that great live, but it's OK because our crummy sound tech prevents even the best bands from sounding any good at all, ever?") [Billboard]

3:00 PM on Mon Sep 22 2008
By Maura Johnston
333 views, 11 comments

Latest by MrStarhead: And actually, Andrew W.K.'s from Michigan. more »

the $1.99 LP dept.

There Are Still People Out There Who Will Pay Two Bucks For A Soundgarden Album

Every week, I pore over the digital-album charts—which lists the 50 albums that sold the most virtual copies on sites like iTunes, eMusic, and Amazon MP3—in an effort to figure out what new albums have high percentages of digital sales, and to see what older albums are having odd online sales spikes. Yesterday, I noticed that Amazon MP3's Twitter is being updated with the store's daily cheap-album deals, which is a big help for someone who wants to figure out why certain albums that are old in Internet time (like, sometimes even 10 years old!) are popping back on the chart. A few attempts at correlation after the jump. More »

12:00 PM on Mon Sep 22 2008
By Maura Johnston
858 views, 6 comments

Latest by Thierry: On a sidenote, whither Kim Thayil? The guy was a huge part of what made Soundgarden great, and he's hardly been heard of in ten years! more »

rock-critically correct

"Spin" Goes Back To Beck

Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe, and Spin are given a once-over by a writer who's contributed to many of those magazines, as well as a few others! In this installment, he looks at the new issue of Spin: More »

12:00 PM on Thu Aug 28 2008
By Anono-Critic
1,149 views, 4 comments

who charted

The Album Charts Are Starting To Feel A Little Comfortable

For another week, Lil Wayne and Coldplay make up the album charts' 1-2 punch, with Tha Carter III taking the top spot (125,000 copies sold) and Coldplay serving as Wayne's best men (113,000 sold). According to Hits, Nas' untitled album is set to break this log jam next week, but I'll believe it when I see it. More »

4:30 PM on Wed Jul 16 2008
By Maura Johnston
719 views, 3 comments

friday afternoon chart preview

The Charts Prepare To Yawn At Beck

All the positive mind powers that come with being "clear" couldn't push Beck to a No. 1 debut on next week's album charts. With an estimated 80,000 copies sold, Beck's Danger Mouse-assisted Modern Guilt couldn't manage to get past the seemingly indestructible sales juggernauts of Coldplay, Lil Wayne, and the Camp Rock soundtrack. Coldplay and Weezy will likely fight it out for the top spot to the very end, with both discs selling somewhere in the 100-125,000 range. Those adorable Jonases and their cohorts will sllde into third with just under 100,000 sold; Kid Rock, who's still riding "All Summer Long," surges up another two spots this week to No. 5. The bottom half of the top ten starts with Now 28; Rihanna, G Unit, and the Mamma Mia! soundtrack will have quite the tuneful brawl as they fight for Nos. 7-9. John Mayer should take the final spot in the top ten, although he's likely too busy brainstorming his next viral video while rolling around in a big pile of money to care. [HITS Daily Double]

12:00 PM on Fri Jul 11 2008
By Dan Gibson
125 views, 1 comment

Latest by Chris N.: Rolling around in a big pile of money with Jennifer Aniston, no less! more »

videodrone

Beck Is Trapped In The Sixties, Himself

I'll acknowledge Maura's point (over IM) that it's better he do this kind of second-rate Unrest than something grandly glum. But watching "Gamma Ray," now complete with unmemorable, psychedelic video, I can't help but feel that his collaboration with Danger Mouse is the latest sign of the stagnancy and self-marginalization he's been suffering from ever since his 2002 Gordon Lightfoot album did better than his 1999 pop album. Even as he hops from name producer to name producer, I can't imagine we'll see a big change in Beck's work any time soon. [YouTube]

4:15 PM on Thu Jul 10 2008
By Anthony Miccio
264 views, 9 comments

Latest by Tenno: Being 'Clear' means being banal and tawdry. more »

the last word

Beck Responds To The Fast Pace Of Modern Life By Dashing Off An Album

From time to time, we round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. This time around, we look at the critical reaction to Beck's rush-released collaboration with Danger Mouse, Modern Guilt, which hits stores tomorrow. More »

10:00 AM on Mon Jul 7 2008
By Maura Johnston
727 views, 2 comments

leak of the day

Beck And Danger Mouse, Hanging Out In Silverlake, Record An Album

ARTIST: Beck
TITLE: Modern Guilt
RELEASE DATE: July 7, 2008
WEB DEBUT: June 30, 2008 More »
intentional leak of the day

Beck To Bystanders: "Psych!"

ARTIST: Beck
TITLE: "Orphans"/"Gamma Ray"
WEB DEBUT: June 24, 2008 More »
espresso to yr skull

Sonic Youth Reveals Tracklisting For Daring Friend-Curated Hit Comp

As may you may have heard, Sonic Youth has decided to skip the traditional best-of route, instead getting famous friends like Mike D, Radiohead and Eddie Vedder to pick less familiar, more personal choices like "100%," "Kool Thing," and "Teen Age Riot." Only six of the fifteen older titles selected have never received a video treatment, and one of those is "Expressway To Yr Skull." This basically leaves "Stones," "Tuff Gnarl," "Rain On Tin," "Tom Violence" and "The World Looks Red" as genuinely surprising tracks to find on a SY comp, so thank you Allison Anders, Dave Eggers, Flea, Gus Van Sant, and Chloe Sevigny. Hits Are For Squares? Wouldn't a more accurate title have been Starpower? Let's attempt to deduce the curators' logic. More »

11:30 AM on Thu May 22 2008
By Anthony Miccio
961 views, 11 comments

Latest by Butch Huskey: no Incinerate? ; Sunday? My Friend Goo? Youth Against Fascism? ... more »

intentional leak of the day

Beck Brings The Sleepy Psychedelia That Half His Fanbase Has Been Craving

ARTIST: Beck
TITLE: "Chemtrails"
WEB DEBUT: May 19, 2008 More »
MTV is reporting that the new Beck album may be stealth dropped, Raconteurs-style, sometime within the next month or so. The album would be the second Danger Mouse-produced album of 2008 to be rushed into release to avoid extended periods of leakage. (Sorry I made that sound more gross than necessary.) [MTV]

2 comments

Beck shockingly confirms that the pop-bricolage libretto to Odelay was mostly random-function funny-talk. No word on the relative heartfelt-ness of his Mellow Gold-era lyrics, but you should probably snip "to have and to beefcake pantyhose" from your wedding vows just to be sure. [Guardian]

18 comments

obituaries

Video Director's Life Comes To A Sad End



The video for Beck's "Round The Bend," which was created by video artist Jeremy Blake, somehow manages to be even more low-key and glacially paced than the song itself. The images slowly melt together, leaving abstracted, animated washes of bright colors while only occasionally revealing the nature of their form. There are no figures; when the face of Beck appears, it's only as a two-dimensional representation directly lifted from the art that Blake created for the 2002 album Sea Change. It's a gorgeous piece, and it's likely the final music video of Blake's career—he went missing last week and is now presumed dead.
More »

10:30 AM on Fri Jul 27 2007
By fluxington
990 views, 2 comments

Latest by Adairdevil: His interstitial artwork for Punch Drunk Love was gorgeous. This is upsetting. more »

mp3

Stuck On Repeat: Beck Goes To The Dark Side

We try to be pretty sparing when it comes to posting mash-ups, because they get a little tiring after a while, and also because the genre seems to have fallen into a "this song's title is kind of the same as that song's title!" stylistic rut as of late. But we'll make an exception in the case of the Illuminoids' take on Beck's "Loser," which merges the song with Devo's "Mongoloid" and Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi Is Dead." We missed the song when it was up on Popbytes a few weeks ago, so we're grateful that the latest installment of the excellent NYUB podcast brought it our attention: More »

2:06 PM on Mon Apr 16 2007
By Brian Raftery
700 views, 1 comment

Latest by KinetiQ: Beautiful track - I was beginning to wonder when someone was going to mashup "Bela Lugosi's Dead," which probably just means I've missed it. Repeatedly. The Beck verses flow throughout pretty well, while all other vocals (Loser's chorus, all of "Mongoloid" more »

saturday night live

"SNL" Postmortem: Beck Shows Off His String Section

Anyone who's read one of the kazillion reviews or blog posts about Beck's recent tour knows that a) he uses marionettes, and b) at one point, all of his band members sit at a kitchen table, playing their utensils. This "Clap Hands" clip shows off both live-show staples, which means that not only does Beck now have to come up with something completely new, but that SNL finally featured a floppity haired puppet on that wasn't Andy Samberg.

Beck, "Clap Hands" (Saturday Night Live) [YouTube]

5:38 PM on Mon Oct 30 2006
By Brian Raftery
695 views, 1 comment

Latest by SirLoin: With all the recent Beck-lash going on about him being a corporate, xenu-loving faux-hipster, one thing still remains totally true: That was pretty fucking awesome. more »

beck

The Becklash Is About To Begin

A few months ago, Wired magazine ran a cover story on Beck that focused less on his songwriting and more on his music-distribution prowess. And damned if it didn't draw some of the angriest reader mail we've seen. From the new issue's "Rants + Raves" column: More »

5:03 PM on Fri Oct 20 2006
By Brian Raftery
77 views, 9 comments