Beck

Recorded, Slideshow

10 Songs: Tuesday, June 16th, 2015

Dreams – Beck – This is OK when you concentrate on it, it isn’t Midnight Vultures but the beat is sure steady enough, and it is lively, But it irritates as background and then you realize he needs to find the middle ground he wasn’t had – B

News, Slideshow, Upcoming Releases

Two Song Snippets Show Up On Beck’s Page

‘It started out as a heavy garage rock thing and became much more of a dance — some kind of hybrid,’ he said to the radio station. He also said he had been working on it for a few years so that the material is ‘pretty diverse,’ but ‘it’s a group of songs that fit together.’

News, Opinion, Slideshow

Beck May Have Won Two Grammys But He Is Still A Scientologist

Masterson thinks the documentary ‘interviewed eight people who hate Scientology’, and he ponders ‘I wonder if Sundance would allow a documentary of, like, eight people who hate Judaism’… Is it such an unfair and stupid comparison, does he know there are entire organizations which mobilize against Scientology in order to denounce the abuse and the isolation in which members of the church are maintain?

controversy, News, Slideshow

Beck’s Wikipedia Page Vandalized All Day Long By Beyonce’s Fans

Interviewed by US magazine, he reacted so politely it was a bit disarming: ‘I was just so excited he was coming up. He deserves to be on stage as much as anybody. How many great records has he put out in the last five years, right?’… ‘You can’t please everybody, man. I still love him and think he’s genius. I aspire to do what he does.’

News, Slideshow

Beck Wins Two Grammys, Kanye (Almost) Disapproves

Beck’s ‘come back’ album ‘Morning Phase’ won a Grammy for Best Rock Album Award and another Grammy for Album of the Year. Prince presented the last Grammy — that was so Midnight Vultures — and Beck was in competition with Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Pharrell and Beyoncé!

Be Here Now, Slideshow

Be Here Now: Snap Shot Reviews of New Album Release 7-29-14

Eric Clapton And Friends – The Breeze (An Appreciation Of JJ Cale) After the dire Old Socks, this coulda have been a disaster, but it isn’t, what it does is place Cale out of the “Cocaine” one hit wonder category and into the basic blues canon with some of Clapton’s greatest acoustic warm glow performances since Ocean boulevard rising to the occasion – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A

Slideshow

Beck's Brother, Channing Hansen Is Making Quantum Knits.

If you don’t appreciate modern art, you obviously will have a hard time to appreciate anything over there, and I was quite confused about a lot of things (if not everything) presented in the exhibit. Beck’s brother makes hand-knitted constructions, stretched on wood frames, like the one you can admire above, and he builds them from scratch

Slideshow

Beck's 'Song Reader' Officially Released On July 29th.

According to the Future Heart, it seems that this is almost done, as the album can already be pre-ordered on Amazon, and will be issued via Capitol on July 29th. This means that Beck fans will have had three Beck albums this year, ‘Morning Phase’ released last February, this ‘Song Reader’ and another one that Beck always mentions, probably set to be released this fall.

Slideshow

Active Viewin': rock nyc Concert Picks Week Of June 30th, 2014

if you are going to see Mike Love’s version, don’t expect transcendence, expect old guys thinking young guys songs so old couples can singalong and maybe their kids can join. On July 4th, at Jones Beach, maybe that’s what we want, memories of when we could have fun all summer long instead of working every summer for the past 40 odd years

Lists, Slideshow

Top 75 of the Nineties

Full disclosure: in the mid-90s I did a tropical Latin music show on WPFW-FM so I wasn’t paying attention in those years to Anglo-American music, and in the late nineties I had a kid and was too exhausted to keep up, but in the mid-00s, I did go back to fill the gaping lacunae. I’m sure I missed some major tunes, so feel free to let me know what they are.

Slideshow

10 Songs, Tuesday, APril 1st, 2014

Heart Is A Drum – Beck – Elegant folk ambient mood music includes the sweetest melody he has written in many years and a mix of string instruments that has some of the airiness of Laurel Canyon in its DNA and the rhythm of life flowing through it – A

US Top 10 Albums

US Top 10 Albums March 15th, 2014

After moving over a million units the first week, and half a million the second week, Beyonce has been on the charts for the entire year and counting. 11 weeks? Which makes it the album of the year so far. Meanwhile… the Schoolboy Q and the Kid Cudi have their moments FYI.

UK Top 10 Albums

UK Top 10 Albums 3-8-14

Imagine if you will, Oasis meets Primal Scream and you’ll have Reverend And The Makers, whose third album is really good and who have continued the gradation from opening for Oasis on their final tour to becoming a phenom in their own rights.

News

10 Songs: Saturday, March 1st, 2014

It is like grunge without the loud/soft stuff and with much more sonic pounce in its step, but also without the sense of a scene to make sense of it, unless you consider former members of Male Bonding a scene – B+

News

10 Songs, wednesday, February 26th, 2014

The least weird song on the album is still pretty weird, a dance number but it sounds like Robyn on a jittery caffeine high but suffering a fit of manic depression and she just can’t shake it until in a wild rhythmic breakdown she pauses and regroups none the better – A

Sneak Peak

Sneak Peaks: New Releases Week Of 2-25-14

Everything we’ve heard from Beck’s Morning Phase (his self professed follow up to Sea Change) have been excellent; there is nothing to choose between “Wave”, “Waking Light” and “Blue Moon”, they are first rate return to forms. Otherwise, Schoolboy Q, St. Vincent, Neneh Cherry, maybe Wild Beasts.

rock nyc

Direct Currents Upcoming Album releases

Anything interesting? Lesse here: new Beck, Dierks Bentley, St Vincent, The Fray (THE FRAY NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO), St. Vincent, Drive By Truckers, Cloud Nothings, and apparently D’Angelo has completely given up and is releasing a live album.

News

10 Songs, Thursday, February 6th, 2014

The solos that intro and outro the 20s masterpiece written by the great man himself are there for dancing but once the vocal kicks in the song changes tempo and Louis growls an entreaty and a promise “If you just listen to me honey, I’ll tell you something you don’t know…” – A+

Track Review

Beck Has Released A New Song: Listen To 'Blue Moon'

just listening to this warm melancholic chorus brings me back years ago, these ooooooos are definitively very Sea Change, the tone is just a bit more upbeat. And if this had escaped you, the rainbow in Beck’s face is there to remind you about the cover art of ‘Sea Change’

News

10 Songs : What rock nyc Is Listening To 1-22-14

Rockstar – A Great Big World – Written before they hit it big, this is a very good song about tempting to daydream about a future yet to be realized, a self-portrait waiting to come true and the meaning of success if there is one: “Take a ticket and get on the line..” Which they did – B+

rock nyc

The A+ List 1-15-14

The Golden Age – Beck – The lethargy is deathlike, the thing about death in a body is its lack of animation, it simply stops the body and then the body decays to dust. This decay, this rotting of the self, the inertness of life is the hidden subject matter of Beck’s masterpiece.

rock nyc

‘Morning Phase’, A New Beck Album For February.

Beck has just announced a new album entitled ‘Morning Phase’ for February. Beck has in fact just signed with Capitol Records to release his 12th album, and fans are probably already salivating at the idea, since the famous musician hasn’t had a proper release since his 2008 ‘Modern Guilt’

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