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Odelay

Beck - Odelay Audio CD

A fair review of the Beck "Odelay" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Beck reviews here, or go back to the Beck tabs.

Band: Beck
Title: Odelay
Rating:

Release Date: 2008-01-29
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Devil's Haircut 2: Hotwax 3: Lord Only Knows 4: The New Pollution 5: Derelict 6: Novacane 7: Jack-Ass 8: Where It's At 9: Minus 10: Sissyneck 11: Readymade 12: High 5 (Rock The Catskills) 13: Ramshackle 14: Deadweight [Soundtrack] 15: Inferno* 16: Gold Chains* *Previously Unreleased 17: Where It's At [U.N.K.L.E. Remix] 18: Richard's Hairpiece [Aphex Twin Remix Of "Devil's Haircut"] 19: American Wasteland [Mickey P.Remix Of "Devil's Haircut"] 20: Clock 21: Thunder Peel 22: Electric Music And The Summer People 23: Lemonade 24: Sa-5 25: Feather In Your Cap 26: Erase The Sun 27: .000.000 28: Brother 29: Devil Got My Woman 30: Trouble All My Days 31: Strange Invitation 32: Burro

Green Andy Reviews: Beck - Odelay
I would love it if you could trade in your old copy of an album for credit towards a newer edition. If there's one thing I hate, it's buying an album twice, even though I'm often forced to do it. Which means that this is the most brilliant gift I've ever received, and I need to get a girlfriend again soon just so I can score some more double-disc deluxe editions of albums I already own. (Actually, I'm specifically hoping to get the last girlfriend back, but that's another story. )

Anyway, Odelay isn't my favorite Beck album (that honor goes to MELLOW GOLD), but it's a very very good album, and it's certainly obvious why it's his most popular work. This record combines his restless skipping from genre to genre (often within the same song, and even sometimes the same verse) and his love of traditional musical forms, and marries it to a pop sensibility that the insular MELLOW GOLD didn't have. Every song here sounds simultaneously like it was written by Beck for himself alone, and for a pop chart that didn't quite exist until he invented it. Unlike most of the rest of 90's indie rock, there was nothing dour or angsty about Beck. His songs were a celebration of pop music in all its forms, and a recognition that all of it is profound and ridiculous in equal measures. Actually, I don't know if he articulated it like that, but songs like the absurdly simplistic opener "Devil's Haircut", the country-blues "Lord Only Knows" and the slacker blues-rap anthem "Where It's At" refuse to stay in one genre for too long, constantly veering from rural folk to feedback-y punk rock to hip hop and back again. Beck's zest for music is helped along on this record by the Dust Brothers, whose work here mirrors their kaleidoscopic production on the Beastie Boys' classic PAUL'S BOUTIQUE.

There are tons of Beck b-sides and compilation tracks out there, so he's well-served by these deluxe re-releases (although he still hasn't made one of MELLOW GOLD, dammit). On this one, there's a nice blend of remixes and previously unreleased songs (unreleased on full-length CD, anyway). The infamous "Richard's Hairpiece", Aphex Twin's mix of "Devil's Haircut" is here, although it's a lot tamer than I'd imagined. And there's a fun lurching noise rocker named ". 000. 000", which I also like because alphabetically speaking, it's probably going to be the first song in my music collection forever. But the highlight of the bonus disc is a great remix of "Devil's Haircut" by Mickey P titled "American Wasteland", where Beck's distorted vocals are pasted onto a brisk hardcore song. More often than not, deluxe editions of albums just contain demo and rehearsal versions of the main album tracks, which I find endlessly boring. This one is definitely worth the money, though. But if you can get someone to buy it for you, then so much the better.

Loaded with mid-90s bonus tracks (and love)
I remember having someone drive me to a gas station to meet up with a radio station van that was running a live feed; I'd won an advance copy of Beck's then unreleased classic album over the phone, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Beck's second major label album, Odelay, was released in 1996, just as some of my friends were working on wrecking their first cars and finding their first girlfriends. I'd been a fan of grunge, rap and classic rock for the whole of my young life, so, needless to say, I flipped the first time I heard the genre-bending "Where It's At" on MTV. Sure, I liked "Loser" and some of Beck's previous songs, but Odelay was instantly something different; it was and still is an incredibly produced genre-masher no one could've ever expected. Because of this personal history with Beck's funky pop classic I wasn't surprised to find myself racing out on the day-of-release to pick up the uber-expanded reissue of the album, after all, this was arguably the most creative and influential Platinum-selling album of the 90s.

Lets start by stating the obvious: most reissues are little more than a ploy by record labels to get people to pay for an album a second time, sans all the initial recording, design and marketing costs. Most include demos, live songs, videos, interviews or alternate recordings, but not usually anything really a whole lot that warrants the price of readmission. Such is not the case with Odelay: Deluxe Edition. Along with the original 13-song album, buyers also get a rare Odelay-era soundtrack song, two unreleased songs called "Inferno" and "Gold Chains," three remixes and, most importantly, 13 mostly rare proper b-sides. Remixes aside, this 33-song collection only further establishes the greatness of Odelay.

An underdog experimentalist before the release of this album, Beck worked long and hard on these dense, imaginative recordings, reportedly writing and recording enough material for three albums, a rumor proven by the girth of this reissue. The core album - which in retrospect could most easily be described as a mishmash of the Beastie Boys, grunge, pop and folk - still sounds bigger than life and about as brainy and varied as anything from its era. Pair the 13 b-sides with the three other rare studio tracks and you have yourself Odelay, Pt. 2. No, it's not as good as the core album, but it does make for a nice compliment to an already essential album.

The "bonus album" here, which is being playfully dubbed as Deadweight (after the aforementioned soundtrack song of the same name) in fan circles, sounds consistent to Odelay's core material, though rightfully not quite as memorable. The songs bleep and burst, usually feeling more like cut-and-paste projects than actual songs. We learn from the extensive liner notes that Beck plays most of the instruments on the songs, accompanied most often by production cohorts The Dust Brothers, who add a programmed layer of static-y grime that offers this expansive collection a needed element of continuity.

In addition to the completist-friendly content on Odelay: Deluxe Edition, you also get a few unexpected perks. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, for one, contributes a write-up that works as a foreword to the Dave Eggers-penned liner notes. All lyrics and original art is included, as well as some rare additional art, a protective slipcase and some goofy, spiffed-up exterior art made perfect to remind listeners that Odelay is supposed to be a fun record. Where most reissues prey on the loyalty of devout fans, this project - coordinated by Shauna O'Brien - is a generous collection of material that should not only make fans feel nostalgic for the sound of the summer of 1996, but also offer the very worthwhile scraps left in Beck left in his very determined rubble. Material too good to let go undocumented.

Not every generation gets a Bowie, but the rockers (and rappers, and funkers) of the 90s did, and this is his masterpiece: an album that still sounds great some 140 months later. It was and still is youthful music for youthful days; an album that will likely forever sound fresh, artistically ambitious and stylistically wandering. (Greg Locke).

Buy the original Odelay
The album is "remastered," as in they made it sound less raw and more like it's in a bubble. I AM NOT GIVING IT 3 STARS FOR THE SONGS. The only reason to buy this is for the songs Inferno and Gold chains because they are unreleased otherwise. I'm curious to hear what they sounded like before they got the remastering treatment. To make matters worse they took Hotwax (one of my favorite songs by Beck) and made it hard to listen to by adding a second vocal track. Who knows why they did that. There also is little changes that don't make sense, for example the beginning of The New Pollution is a tiny bit different. And Sissyneck has added beeping noises.

All of the songs (besides inferno and gold chains) can be found on the original Odelay and on the singles released around the time the album was put out.

Inferno:
The song doesn't stay the same for more than 10 seconds, and it's crazy. After a while the song becomes a long drone-like ending.

Gold Chains:
Not a very serious song at all, but it's real fun. Lots of sratching and guitar.

Super!!!
Well, it's BECK!!!! And it's definitely worth it because of the additional songs and b-sides!!!!. Super good album! I was asked why I bought this album as I already had the non-deluxe version.

so happy together...
this new deluxe edition has all the gooey goodness of the original, but it just gets better the more you hear it of course. odelay is all rainbows and sunshine, it makes me that happy. plus you get some new stuff that is magical as well. i could not ever express how amazing beck is, how much i love him! .

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