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Beck
Mutations
1998, Beck's follow-up to the insanely successful Odelay was a smart one. At least to this listener. Instead of going down that same everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach he took a sharp turn for a detour. He hooked up with Nigel Godrich and decided to just pull some songs out of his notebooks and bang them out in short time. No crazy samples. No bells and whistles. What this results in - and probably why I've always been so drawn to Mutations - is an album that sounds like the same guy who recorded One Foot In The Grave suddenly had access to a an expensive studio and a producer who had worked with Radiohead. Because that's totally what this album is. While some might write this one off as less adventurous or even boring, I hear it as ballsy. And to my own ears Mutations is the one that's stood the test of time better. Or rather it sounds more timeless. There's the solid folk-rock of "Cold Brains" and "Lazy Flies," the baroque majesty of "We Live Again," and the tropicalia of well, "Tropicalia." There's experimentation in songs like "Sing It Again," "O Maria" and "Bottle Of Blues," it's just that doing something so traditional is the experiment when you're an artist who had spent his career doing much weirder shit. For my money the standout track is "Nobody's Fault But My Own," with its droning drumless atmosphere, it's a gorgeous dirge of a ballad. Mutations is a wonderful stripped down record, and its theme is one that Beck will return to later in his career perhaps when he feels the need to cleanse pallets or just clean out old notebooks.
The Lemonheads
Lovey
1990, The fourth Lemonheads album is a bit like a debut. It's their first on a major label; first without Ben Deily, which left Evan Dando as sole singer-songwriter; and first to pretty much completely ditch any of the punk roots of the earlier incarnation of the band. Lovey is far from perfect but totally sets the stage for the kind of material the band would be best known for on the next few albums. The difference being that Lovey is a pretty unfocused album. It's clearly a band in transition. Opener "Ballarat" is fucking weird, but I love it. I have no idea what any of the lyrics even are as they're so drenched in effects. I think the chorus pleads "give me all of your fear," but I'm not even sure. And then there's cheerleaders. I don't even know. And then "Half The Time" goes in a totally different direction - it's almost like a country ballad. Reminds me a bit of something like Whiskeytown. "Ride With Me" is probably the best known track here - a gentle ballad that seems inspired by a bumper sticker and found itself appearing on band's Best Of in acoustic form later on. "That pencil smell reminds me of school / That clock on the wall, I can no longer fool," it's good stuff. "Stove" is a pop-punk story about the gas-man taking out Evan's electric stove, and is probably the closest thing here to the It's A Shame About Ray/Come On Feel sound. "Left For Dead" is actually just a re-recording of "Clang Bang Clang" from 1988's Creator (for some reason). Then there's "Brass Buttons" - a Graham Parsons cover that sticks out like a sore thumb, but still kind of makes sense? Finally "The Door" closes things out and it's this huge melodramatic power ballad thing that straddles the line between sincerity and absurdity with impressive results. I don't know. Lovey is kind of a mess, but it's an interesting mess indeed.
The Smashing Pumpkins
Machina/The Machines Of God
2000, I think it's fair to say that Machina was a divisive album amongst fans. Some looked at it as a welcome return to a more guitar-oriented sound (plus a reunion with Jimmy on drums) after the mostly electronic Adore, while others lamented that it wasn't guitar-oriented enough and just felt a bit too much like Adore. And both sides were basically right. There's no denying that nostalgia plays a huge role in my affinity for the Pumpkins. And while Machina was never an album that I thought was as strong as the string of records that came before it, I still kind of love it in a weird way. Like other albums released from late 1999 through early 2000, this one has a special place in my heart because it reminds me of being fresh out of high school and in that magical time when you're exploring college and trying to figure out how life works as a so-called adult. At that time something like this - that was equally familiar as well as new was probably exactly what I needed to hear. First single "Everlasting Gaze" was all I needed to hear to be on board with this one. And weirdly, while I've said that I don't think Machina is as good as its predecessors, I've grown increasingly fascinated with this record in the years since its release - partly because of the saga of Machina II, the break-up of the band, and the brief forming of Zwan before SP would kinda sorta reform. I guess in my mind I just see Machina as the beginning of a very interesting era for the band.
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