We Like To Sit Around And Get Real POLLED: Beck's "Midnite Vultures"

oh, god. this is gonna be HARD.

i still remember the first time i heard "Sexx Laws" on the radio, i freaked out in my car. that's the last time i got that excited about new Beck music.

loved this a ton at the time and was disappointed it didn't approach odelay's success (esp as altrock radio was really dire by 99). still heard it a TON at parties so effectively in athens at least it was a hit album. can understand alot of the criticisms of it at the time - that it was very very possibly racist, that it represented someone who had completely exhausted whatever ideas they might've once had, etc - but think that's been exaggerated some w/ time (at the time it got good reviews). frontloaded w/ the hits (not counting 'debra'), i like the back half alot more. 'milk & honey' is probably my actual fave but voted 'pressure zone' cuz this album is effectively the last great dust brothers moment and that thing is a total tone loc jam.

I loved it for about two months before getting self-conscious about knowing shit about funk and R&B. It took years to return. Now I can hear the fun and how fucking weird it is: a good Young Americans.

"Sexx Laws" and "Mixed Bizness" I heard all the time in so-called indie clubs with dance floors 2001-2004.

"Milk and Honey" my favorite too: love the Johnny Marr outro.

"Beautiful Way" used well in an episode of "Homicide" from the same time.

Young americans comparison is apt, and not just cuz debra bites win.

a good Young Americans

otm! (Except none of these songs are as good as "Young Americans" or "Win" or even "Fame")

Possibly the best beck album, certainly some kind of last hurrah

probably "Debra" but i dunno

this is the only beck album i listen to

best Beck album by leaps and bounds. "Milk & Honey" is the shit

Pressure Zone

Not to open a can of worms that has already rotted from overexposure - but racist? Really?

Yeah I dont get that either

Peaches and Cream for me. chorus insanely fun to sing

Not to open a can of worms that has already rotted from overexposure - but racist? Really?

This was definitely a thing in reviews at the time. The New Yorker on Midnite Vultures: "a postmodern minstrel show that borrows liberally from a century of African-American pop, paying tribute to black vernacular music that most white musicians would never dare to touch." Rolling Stone: "At times, the album verges on minstrelsy, particularly in the slack-jawed rap of 'Hollywood Freaks.'"

Did they say that about young americans too

Also lol the two biggest rips on the album are from bowie and the velvets

Beck was doing these fantastic fake soul review gigs at the time iirc - this is way his best record and it is kinda minstrelly, so is Young Americans so that don't really absolve the charge - but fuck it he did it really really well - find it hard not to vote "Sexx Laws" tbh, it speaks to me still

Mixed Bizness. first exposure to it was this, which was o_0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK7bK6JWctA

I suspect for many people it's sort of been boiled down to "Debra" plus some other songs

LOL, "Debra" is about the only song I'm pretty sure I'm not voting for.

I should listen to this more; I like it but haven't really absorbed it, plus I really am Team Guero when it comes to Beck albums

LOL, "Debra" is about the only song I'm pretty sure I'm not voting for.

Ditto. I loathe this track.

I am not a major Debra fan but a lot of people love it, for LOL reasons or otherwise, I dunno.

Anyway, I listened through the whole album again last night and was struck by how much detail there was in the songs, little bits coming in partway, lots of changes - my choice to treat it as a headphone album wasn't so batty as I thought. It's not Odelay but the records that followed were so much more straightforward.

Well, I heard him do "Debra" on the Odelay tour and it was pretty stunning.

So, it took 2 years for him to issue it.

At the time, I thought to myself "He can do that singing style better than Prince!"

he might as well have sung "Wild in the Wind" in the style of Bowie.

xp No. He can't.

Loved this so much when it came out, still might be my favorite Beck album.

Voted "Hollywood Freaks"

Nobody's said Nicotine And Gravy yet? Milk And Honey pushes it close, but man that hyperactive prog-funk madness is mine all mine

Young americans comparison is apt, and not just cuz debra bites win.

― joe schmoladoo from 7-11 (Shakey Mo Collier), Sunday, July 28, 2013 10:33 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a good Young Americans

otm! (Except none of these songs are as good as "Young Americans" or "Win" or even "Fame")

― flamboyant goon tie included, Sunday, July 28, 2013 10:34 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I specifically remember a critic at the time writing something along the lines of how MV had already been done better and it was called Young Americans.

Mixed Bizness is fun. I hate this record though.

I too hate this album. it was constantly being played in my friends' cars during high school. "Beautiful way" is the least obnoxious/most tolerable.

keep your lamp light trimmed and burning

I don't know what I'll vote for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP2jC_kAkfU

That refrain is way older than hot tuna fyi

Greil Marcus three-word review: "This is embarrassing."

I think it was when this came out that I saw him at Maxwells? I'd have to relisten.

That refrain is way older than hot tuna fyi

― joe schmoladoo from 7-11 (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, July 30, 2013 8:25 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um i know?

I did not know, but googling it, I've heard songs with it before. Still, great part of Peaches & Cream.

I really wish this album was so much better than it was...

i like this record but he's got 2 or 3 better

so i had to listen to Beck's sex album again before voting. can't believe we haven't polled this yet. anyways it has aged well, the single still sound crisp and clean.

this is absolutely "Debra" the most emotional song on the album and his best Prince. also the best two lines, where there are plenty of them:

"Cause when our eyes did meet
Girl, you know I was packing' heat"

...until you hear him sing those lines

lol

meant singles.

"You make a garbage man scream
Such a dangerous dream"

Prince delivered in an arch manner is the ultimate in not getting the joke.

Should re-listen, but all I like is the first minute of "Hollywood Freaks."

you really shouldn't

aww, it really isn't a bad album, in fact it was sort of fun.

it makes all the lesbians scream!

It's alright. Turn it up now.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Went straight to voting "Get Real Paid", cos it's such a tightly constructed electronic tune, it's just so perfect, like clockwork. Sort of reminds me of something Cornelius would put together. That great multi-vocal ending which sort of fades into a ramshackle robot choral loop.

This album had AMAZING b-sides. Some ("This is My Crew", "Dirty Dirty") are better than the album cuts!

Oops should've voted "Mixed Bizness", not because it's the best song but because it contains my favorite moment on the album, the little post-song noise collage starting at 3:45. Sounds like a robot saying "Thank you" and then exotic Tetris music playing in the distance while a couple of machines have sex.

i say lady, step inside my hyundaiaiai

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Told you guys people liked ''Debra''! Glad to see a decent spread on this though, and glad other people rate ''Milk and Honey'' so high. Thanks for playing.

"Debra" doing well in an ILM poll doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

i voted for it. it's only about a five and half or six minutes long, it's not over 13 minutes.

Do the robots not say "fuck you?"

hidden track bizness prob.

Always heard it as 'fuck you,' but I was also in high school and forever eager to find 'hidden' swears. Yeah, the Debra running time is to cover the hidden track. I guess I could have listed it separately. I think the only hidden Beck cut I would vote for (in a ballot poll setting, mind) would be the ''looking back at some dead world'' one on Mutations.

Diamond Bollocks is the crazy prog blockbuster Beck shudda done more often