Record Club:
WEEK 245 — October 8-14, 2023
Mellow Gold
by Beck
LISTEN:
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PICKED BY RACHEL S.
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ALBUM DETAILS
GENRE: Alternative rock, singer-songwriter, slacker rock, neo-psychedelia
RELEASED: March 1, 1994
LENGTH: 45:31
TRACKLIST:
- Loser
- Pay No Mind (Snoozer)
- Fuckin with My Head (Mountain Dew Rock)
- Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997
- Soul Suckin' Jerk
- Truckdrivin Neighbors Downstairs (Yellow Sweat)
- Sweet Sunshine
- Beercan
- Steal My Body Home
- Nitemare Hippy Girl
- Motherfuker
- Blackhole
- Analog Odyssey**
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ARTIST DETAILS
PRONOUNS: he/him/his
ABOUT: Born Bek David Campbell, and eventually adding the C to his first name so people would pronounce it correctly, Beck was born on July 8, 1970, in Los Angeles. He's had a long and varied musical career. He gained fame in the '90s with experimental, lo-fi, sample-heavy music, but has since worn a variety of genres over various albums, including folk, anti-folk, funk, country, alt-rock, etc. "Loser" from this album is his most successful single, peaking at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2015, he won the Grammy for Album of the Year for Morning Phase. He was married to Marissa Ribisi from 2004 to 2021, and as of 2019 he claims that he is definitely, definitely not a scientologist.
DISCOGRAPHY: Mellow Gold is the third of Beck's fourteen studio albums. Odelay, released two years later in 1996, is the only album that has bigger sales (2x platinum to Mellow Gold's 1x platinum). Odelay is probably the most critically acclaimed too; however, since Beck has cycled through so many different genres (the psych-country of Mutations in '98, the funk of Midnite Vultures in '99, the folk of Sea Change in '02, for three examples), there are plenty of different albums in the discography championed by different fans. Beck's first album was Golden Feelings in 1993, and his most recent was Hyperspace in 2019.
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ADDITIONAL INFO
READING SOME SHIT: an in-depth New Yorker profile from 2019
WATCHING SOME SHIT: the classic "Loser" video
PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: Welcome back to Record Club, Beck! We last heard Beck when he featured on "The Valley of the Pagans" on Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez by Gorillaz.
Beck seems like the type of artist who likes to "get involved." As such, you could pull the threads and connect him to any other Record Club artist eventually. His 2019 single "Super Cool" features Robyn! He played some covers on the Laurel Canyon doc Echo in the Canyon with Fiona Apple! He had a cameo in The Rugrats Movie, whose soundtrack features No Doubt! Weird Al covered "Loser" as part of "The Alternative Polka" (which also features "You Oughta Know" and "Basket Case"!)! Beck was on a mix CD (twice) that my ex made me in the summer of 2005, along with Iron & Wine and the Black Keys and Death Cab for Cutie! And so on, forever.
But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the weirdest thing (well, didn't mention it again, technically): Beck had a musical project called "Record Club." Wikipedia says that "the purpose of the project is to cover an entire album by another artist in one day, using an informal and fluid collective of musicians." This only existed from 2009 to 2010, as far as I can tell, and of course I prefer our Record Club, but still—pretty cool. They covered five albums, and incredibly, one of those albums was an album covered by PoYB Record Club as well. Kick by INXS. (St. Vincent helped him cover that, and she was on that Gorillaz album that Beck was on too.) Okay, Beck. You now have 243 other album suggestions, from our Record Club to yours.
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Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!
Have a great week!
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