From: owner-trailer-park-digest@smoe.org (trailer-park-digest) To: trailer-park-digest@smoe.org Subject: trailer-park-digest V2 #193 Reply-To: trailer-park@smoe.org Sender: owner-trailer-park-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-trailer-park-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk trailer-park-digest Monday, October 11 1999 Volume 02 : Number 193 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Beck [*octagonal* ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 11:40:34 +0900 From: *octagonal* Subject: Beck The song from the new Beck album where Beth Orton joins him is going to be called "Beautiful Way". Out in a month! yay! This is the article This came from: http://www.addicted.com.au/ *that should brush over those pesky copyright issues* Beck Bares Soul On Upcoming Midnite Vultures ATN USA reports: Album due next month refashions hip-hop folkie as funky Stax/Volt-style singer. Beck wails like a Prince protégé on "Debra" and "Peaches & Cream." Senior Writer Gil Kaufman reports: On his upcoming Midnite Vultures, Beck's persona has evolved from a pseudo-rapper with a "Devils Haircut" to a supersonic soul pimp with love on his mind and some "Hlwd. Freaks" on each arm. Having journeyed through the worlds of hip-hop, psychedelia, folk and country blues on his previous albums, the 29-year-old singer/songwriter delves into new obsessions on the 11-track album, due Nov. 16. "I'll be your chauffeur on a midnight drive/ It takes a miracle just to survive," Beck (born Beck Hansen), sings in a throaty croon on the molasses-thick R&B track "Nicotine & Gravy." The song's sensual lyrics recall such early-'70s soul singers as Isaac Hayes and Barry White. "I'll feed you fruit that don't exist/ I'll leave graffiti where you've never been kissed," Beck sings, adding some of his patented rhymed non sequiturs: "I'll do your laundry/ Massage your soul/ I'll turn you over to the highway patrol." Beck's former drummer, Joey Waronker, said he sensed the singer was going in new and uncharted directions even before the sessions for Midnite Vultures began earlier this year. "He has this incredible gift, where he can pull all these weird pieces together and make it work," Waronker said last fall. "I've never seen anyone else who can do it. He's one of the least self-conscious musicians in the studio that I've ever seen." As much as his critically acclaimed 1996 album Odelay, — which featured the hit "Devils Haircut" (RealAudio excerpt) — was a sample-heavy chronicle of hip-hop-inspired premillennial tension, Midnite Vultures is a soul-shouting, falsetto-wailing dance party of sexual innuendo and good-time vibes. Like many of the songs on the album, "Nicotine & Gravy" moves though various musical phases and moods. After melting into a psychedelic swirl of violins and "na, na, na"s, the tune veers back into testifying soul mode, with a brief detour into early-'80s keyboard-driven electro funk and later, snake-charmer horns over a free-jazz freakout. Similarly, the album's first single, the Stax/Volt-style soul romp "Sexxlaws" (RealAudio excerpt), mixes soul horns with programmed drum beats, a country-tinged slide-guitar solo and a banjo breakdown. While before, Beck seemed to be drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as blues pioneer Robert Johnson, the sung-spoken proto-rapping of folk legend Bob Dylan and early '80s hip-hop, Midnite Vultures looks to an even wider range of influences. Beck's falsetto pleading on "Peaches & Cream" has roots in the rock soul of such Prince albums as Controversy (1981) and Purple Rain (1984). Both seem to be touchstones throughout the bedroom-obsessed album. His voice eerily mimicking Prince's higher register, Beck slips into risqué soul-crooner mode on the album-closing "Debra," a live staple of Beck's shows for the past year. The velvet-funk/sex-rap feel of "Hlwd. Freaks" sounds like an homage to songs such as "Rumpofsteelskin" (RealAudio excerpt) from Motor-Booty Affair, the 1978 album by influential funksters Parliament. Yet another influence that creeps into the album at various points is the early-'80s electro-funk sound of Afrika Bambaataa. Built on a space-age beat and a chorus of female-sounding robot singers, the futuristic pop song "Get Real Paid" sounds like a mix of German techno prototypes Kraftwerk and the 1984 electro anthem "White Horse" (RealAudio excerpt) by American group Laid Back. Even Waronker said he couldn't predict where Beck would go after 1998's Mutations, a suite of drowsy, "wall-of-sound" folk-rock songs that leaned heavily on Indian instrumentation on songs such as "Nobody's Fault But My Own" (RealAudio excerpt). Beck rose from playing gigs on the streets in 1994 when his indie single "Loser" (RealAudio excerpt) became a slacker anthem and introduced the world to his rap-influenced folk style. The singer quickly followed Mellow Gold, his eclectic 1994 debut, with two more albums that year — the stripped-down acoustic blues effort One Foot in the Grave and the experimental pop album Stereopathetic Soul Manure. Midnite Vultures also features the chicken-scratch guitar funk of "Mixed Bizness," heady psychedelic soul on "Out of Kontrol" and a cameo from ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr on the soulful electro-rock tune "Milk & Honey." British techno chanteuse Beth Orton duets with the singer on the countryish ballad "Beautiful Way." The album was co-produced by Beck and Mickey P. [ Tues., Oct. 5, 1999 9:00 AM EDT ] 'honey, i love you, but bite me!' dharma. @@ @@ @@ Peter Fiebig - occy@terra.net.au - UIN 3596528 ------------------------------ End of trailer-park-digest V2 #193 **********************************