What's New with Beck?

Beck has self-stated he's never going on tour again (tear) but being the prodigious artist, he's never short on ideas. He's created the Record Club and here's his own quip on his project and his always quirky homepage:

"We've been working on changes to the website for the last few months. We'll be adding new sections as they're ready. The first one to be added is called Record Club, an informal meeting of various people to record an album in a day. An album will be chosen to be reinterpreted and used as a framework. Nothing rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track will be uploaded once a week on beck.com as well as through the web sites of those involved with the project."

The album they chose was The Velvet Underground and Nico and though I don't listen to The Velvet Underground, the Record Club's version sounds pretty good. I've posted my favorite thus far, but check out all the rest here.

Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico "Femme Fatale" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

An unrelated tidbit, Kings of Convenience is coming out with a new album soon (thanks for the tip, Brittany). According to Wikipedia it will be out Friday, October 9, though I've never heard of albums released on Fridays.

New Album: Wilco - Wilco (The Album)

I can't say I'm the know-all fan of Wilco, but I appreciate their music enough. My first album was a seventeenth birthday present from my friend, Rose. She gave me Summerteeth and though I liked it, I was put off by the fact they were labeled "alternative country." Sorry, I was naive and young but embraced alt-country soon enough. Wilco's new album is more like their last, Sky Blue Sky, than their earlier ones. It plays a lot like one of my playlists, with a solid song to start, mellow middle section, and endearing ending (wow, I just realized I alliterated that entire sentence). That's how I like it, I suppose, because it doesn't take too much effort to listen to it. Some albums, I'm distracted by every song because they arranged every song to be catchy. I don't mind catchy, but don't expect me to listen to it while I'm crunching numbers.

WILCO - Wilco (The Album)

1. Wilco
Catchy and with a punch and a really good start to the album. One of my favorite songs of the album already.

2. Deeper Down
This song is really spacy, broken apart in story. I feel like if Beck were to tweek one of their songs, this would be what he'd come up with (loosely speaking) because of the random sound effects and psychedelic melodies.

3. One Wing

4. Bull Black Nova
I was listening to this album first at work and this song is what made me turn it down. The constant chord in the back is like an alarm to listen up, because the next song is really good. But roughly 5.5 minutes of an alarm is much too long.

5. You and I
Let's admit it--Feist makes any song better. This song was good to begin with, but the fact the female singer is Feist just makes me more excited.

6. You Never Know
A reprise of the bouncy sound again to catch the listener's attention. I like this one quite a bit.

7. Country Disappeared
This song proves why I love alt-country. Though I'm not a big fan of country music, their sounds are always the most important part of the song. Jeff Tweedy's voice is not really the main focus of the song, rather it infuses perfectly with the harmonies of the instruments.

8. Solitaire

9. I'll Fight
A splash of belligerence and sweetness mixed with the always good music of Wilco makes this song my favorite of the album. I'm using the word "music" in high regard here. Both the instrumentation and the singing should be thought through completely. So, even though I appreciate Britney Spears (surprisingly) quite a bit, she and Wilco are idealistically disparate.

10. Sonny Feeling

11. Everlasting Everything
A good ending to the album because it satisfies the listener. Bravo, Wilco. This album gets better and better every time I listen to it.