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#1089: Beck – Ramshackle

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Beck’s Odelay is a trip of an album. With the help of the Dust Brothers production team, Beck puts forward 13 tracks, the majority of which are layered, sort of off-kilter with a hip-hop influence, propelled by loops and samples and other audible oddities that keep its momentum going and at the very least make every song on there interesting to listen to. Some would consider it a 10/10. A classic. I wouldn’t argue with them. However, Odelay initially started out a totally different project, one where the songs within took a more acoustic and subdued route. ‘Ramshackle’ was one of those numbers recorded in those beginning sessions and chosen to close out the final LP, acting as the slow, sobering comedown after the album’s party has ended.

I myself didn’t really appreciate ‘Ramshackle’ until revisiting Odelay again sometime in 2017. It had been in my iTunes library for years up to that point. ‘Devils Haircut’, ‘Hotwax’ and ‘The New Pollution’ were already firm favourites of mine. But the album was just sitting there, and it had been a while since I’d listened to it in full. When ‘Ramshackle’ arrives, 47 or so minutes in after a conveyor belt of one upbeat track after another, the sudden appearance of upright bass and slowly strummed acoustic guitars are a total mood shifter. So slow, you feel like you might just start sinking into whatever you’re sitting in as the music continues. But it makes the dynamic that much more emphatic. Also helps that the melody Beck chooses to sing the lyrics inserts itself almost immediately. Wouldn’t be wrong to say it’s nearly nursery rhyme-like in its simplicity.

I have no solid idea what this song is about. What I see when hearing the music and listening to the lyrics is this sort of lone ranger type going through this shell of a town, looking at the waste around him and just going on his way because he’s meant to roam. There’s a western, cowboy theme here that I get, which I don’t know is felt by anyone else. That’s what I’ve been going with anyway. I think it may be about the weariness of life in general, how the big and small things can get us down. Our possessions, relationships, living our days until we pass away and go on to another plane of existence. Or not. Like all the other songs on Odelay, the meanings within lyrics aren’t all that obvious. The focus is more on how the words sound together and the imagery they convey. Whatever the meaning is here, it’s nothing to get pent up on. The track calms me down, and sometimes that’s what we all need.

#912: Beck – The New Pollution

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‘The New Pollution’ goes in that list of songs that I don’t have much of a deep association to. Didn’t appear at some crucial stage of my adolescence or any significant moment during my life. I may have seen the video for it on MTV2 one time and forgotten about it. But then I went and listened to Odelay once upon a time and couldn’t shake off its catchiness from then on. Bit unremarkable, I realise. But man, this song funks a large amount. Great groove. Couldn’t even try and come to a full understanding of what Beck’s talking about, but that goes for almost every track he wrote in the Odelay era.

In the track, Beck goes through a list of possessions and actions that a mysterious lady owns and carries out in her life. Very surreal things that definitely let a listener’s imagination run wild. Possessions include: A carburetor tied to the moon, a hand on a wheel of pain, a cigarette on each arm and a paradise camouflage. She’s able to sleep in a fiery bog while throwing troubles to the dying embers, among other things. And summing it all up comes the track’s refrain: “She’s alone in the new pollution.” What does that mean? To put it simple, I think it’s a way of saying she’s just another strange, strange girl living in a strange, strange world.

I enjoy the general loopiness of the whole track. So many elements are repeated endlessly from start to finish, I’m very sure the rhythm section rarely changes if at all. Or when instruments or new melodies are introduced, they come in for about four bars before dipping out again. Like that smooth saxophone that comes in at various points. The ‘doo-doo’ introduction is an earworm in itself. Reminds me of a loading menu in a game or something alongside those weird pinging noises and explosion-like sounds. A big nod goes out to the Dust Brothers production team who assisted on the making of the instrumentals throughout the album. They didn’t have to go as hard as they did. The video’s cool too. Going for a swinging-60s vibe. Far out, man.

#759: Beck – Lonesome Tears

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In my first and second year of university, I ‘worked’ as a host on the uni’s radio station. Had my own show, two hours long, put a lot of effort into what my playlist would be. You can find them here. They’re under a lot of names: Sunday Morning Show, Tuesdays with Jamie K, Saturday Rocks… it’s all me. The reason I tell you this is because for those years I spent a lot of time downloading albums to my iTunes library to increase the variety of music I played on my slot. Beck’s Sea Change was one of them. From the small amount of ‘research’ I did back then I saw that it was considered to be the man’s second best album after Odelay on besteveralbums.com, so it was probably worth the amount of space on my laptop. I listened to it once, but didn’t really take it in. My shows were the main focus at the time.

I revisited the album earlier last year and came to the conclusion that it was really good. Definitely didn’t get the ‘delete from computer’ selection that a lot of other albums did. There’s a lot of acoustics and a warmth to its sound throughout that was probably further aided by the production tricks of Nigel Godrich. The mood of the album was a lot more sincere and introspective compared to his usual cryptic and offbeat material, influenced by Beck’s state of mind after a the break-up of a nine-year relationship. ‘The Golden Age’ and ‘Already Dead’ got instant likes from me. ‘Lonesome Tears’ did too. The lyrics are very relatable, and the music – very intense.

Beck sings about the tears he’s been crying, presumably since his relationship ended, and aims to put an end to these crying bouts because there’s no point in doing so if the person you care for doesn’t reciprocate those feelings. That doesn’t stop him from wondering why he could have been done so wrong during choruses though. His vocal is really dry, very intimate, and sounds like he’s really close to the microphone when singing. This is juxtaposed with the expansive string arrangement (arranged by Beck’s dad) that take up the soundscape, and pretty much drown out Beck when those choruses hit. Those strings are most definitely the highlight of the track, truly capturing the emotional distress that’s conveyed in the lyrics before the climactic ending where they climb and climb endlessly before coming to an abrupt end. I had to add the song to the phone just for those parts.

My iPod #270: Beck – Devils Haircut

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If only this song played every time I was just casually walking down the street. Wearing some nice clothes with the track blaring out from an unknown source, people staring at me while I just walk on by ignoring them. It can obviously never happen. But if it did I would feel like the coolest mother around.

That’s basically the plot to the video for “Devils Haircut”, the first trackon Beck’s album “Odelay“. That is until we find out that spies have been watching him the whole time. It’s a brilliant music video directed by Mark Romanek, one that only makes listening to the song even better.

Not a lot of people know what the song is about, including myself. To me it seems like a bunch of random words that link together really well and sound good to the ear, very much like every other They Might Be Giants song or “Peacebone” by Animal Collective, which all sum up to being a metaphor for a devil’s haircut. Whatever it’s about doesn’t really matter. Once that three note riff comes in, I’m instantly hooked. The cool beats and terrific sampling by The Dust Brothers are what give the track its edge.