odelay

There was a bit of a delay for Beck in the recording of this diverse, sampladelic, post modern tour de force. “I thought 'Odelay' might be the last time I got a chance to make a record. I was acutely aware that I was thought of as a one-hit wonder. And I had all kinds of people telling me that it was no good, not to put it out. Before it came out, nobody who heard it was saying ‘This is fucking great.’ I really thought it might be a last hurrah.”

Sessions began with Bong Load producers Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, with largely acoustic songs that were dark and downbeat; but Beck abandoned these and started working with the production team of the Dust Brothers (Mike Simpson and John King) at their house at Silver Lake. “It was tiny,” says Beck. “And one wall, floor to ceiling, was all records.”

They spent a lot of time listening to those records and coming up with impromptu jams. Simpson recalls, “We’d always been forced to sample from records. Whereas with Beck he’d say, ‘I’ve got some ideas’, and plug in his guitar and just start riffing. He’d play a bar or a measure and we’d take that and loop it up and he’d be like, ‘Oh, that’s incredible. Wow, I don’t even remember playing that!’ We were of like minds, had the same goals and were looking to make the same kind of music.”

It was a long and painstaking process. Beck says, “There was this old stuffed chair with the spring coming out of it. I remember sitting there for hours, just staring at that computer screen, waiting for something to back up. And the Pro Tools was so primitive, a lot of times the takes would be lost, so we would just be praying we wouldn’t have to start over.”

“It was great to make a record with nobody looking over our shoulders, nobody anticipating what we were going to do, so we were freed up,” says Simpson. “Even the record company was like, ‘Yeah, cool. Let us know when it’s done’. I don’t think they expected much either. It was nice there was no pressure at all. We were like kids in a candy shop just goofing around.”

The album was a major success, making Beck a spokesman for the slacker generation; but he admits that "Most of the vocals on the album were scratch vocals; we just grew attached to them." Still, the strange word-association poetry of these place-holder lyrics resonated with fans and still have meaning for him. “I’m definitely saying specific things; I articulate things, but in a way that’s encoded. I’m not always saying it in plain language because if I did it would come out trite. It’s a song, not an essay, so I include images and wordplay. Each song is about something specific to me, but I like to add random pieces so that the picture is more blurred—more like life. Life is full of extraneous parts so I like to have these things in my songs.”

'Odelay' peaked at number sixteen sold over two million copies in the United States. It was his first hit album in the UK, making it to number seventeen and going platinum. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

http://www.beck.com/

"Devils Haircut"

"Something's wrong 'cause my mind is fading

Ghetto-blastin' disintegrating

Rock 'n' roll, know what I'm sayin'

And everywhere I look there's a devil waiting"

"Hotwax"

"Yo soy un disco quebrado

Yo tengo chicle en mi cerebro

Who are you?

I'm the enchanting wizard of rhythm

Why did you come here?

I came here to tell you about the rhythms of the universe"

"Lord Only Knows" gives the album its title.

"You only got one finger left

And it's pointing at the door

And you're taking for granted

What the Lord's laid on the floor

So I'm picking up the pieces

And I'm putting them up for sale

Throw your meal ticket out the window

Put your skeletons in jail"

"Jack-Ass"

"I been drifting along in the same stale shoes

Loose ends tying the noose in the back of my mind

If you thought that you were making your way

To where the puzzles and pagans lay

I'll put it together: its a strange invitation"

Odelay "Jackass" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

"Where It's At" uses spoken samples from a sex education film, 'Sex for Teens: (Where It's At)'

"There's a destination a little up the road

From the habitations and the towns we know

A place we saw the lights turn low

The jig-saw jazz and the get-fresh flow

Pulling out jives and jamboree handouts

Two turntables and a microphone

Bottles and cans just clap your hands just clap your hands"

"Sissyneck"

"I got a stolen wife

And a rhinestone life

And some good ol' boys

I'm writing my will

On a three dollar bill

In the evening time"

"Ramshackle" was one of the songs recorded in the original sessions with Rothrock and Schnapf.

"We will go

Nowhere we know

'Til we find our one and all

Hand me downs

Flypaper towns

Stuck together

One and all"

full album:




All songs written by Beck, John King and Michael Simpson, except where noted.  
Produced by Beck Hansen and The Dust Brothers, except where noted.

"Devils Haircut" – 3:14
"Hotwax" – 3:49
"Lord Only Knows" (Beck Hansen) – 4:14
"The New Pollution" – 3:39
"Derelict" – 4:12
"Novacane" – 4:37
"Jack-Ass" – 4:11
"Where It's At" – 5:30
"Minus" (Beck Hansen) – 2:32
Produced by Beck Hansen, Mario Caldato Jr. and Brian Paulson.
"Sissyneck" – 3:52
"Readymade" – 2:37
"High 5 (Rock the Catskills)" – 4:10
"Ramshackle" (Beck Hansen) – 7:29
Produced by Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf.

Includes a hidden track called "Computer Rock"



bonus tracks:

"Diskobox" 


"Clock"