Beck's Record Club

Beck is one of my favorite artists-- the guy is a true workaholic in the best possible sense; never content with exploring one particular genre or mood, and often riding the line between individuality and accessibility as near-perfectly as possible. His most recent endeavor finds him cobbling together a nifty thing called "The Record Club." It sounds simple enough: every now and then, Beck and friends will spend a day hastily covering an entire album. The first of said albums is 'The Velvet Underground and Nico' by... The Velvet Underground... and Nico... The first track (Sunday Morning) is already up:

Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico 'Sunday Morning' from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

I'm guessing the rest of the album is soon to follow if, indeed, it was all covered in one day, on Beck's website.

This is where I start griping a little bit. I won't say that 'The Velvet Underground and Nico' isn't a classic, or that it isn't, technically, a great album in terms of influence, but it has never been one of my personal favorites. Perhaps it results from the age I've lived and discovered music in, but I can't help but feel that the album has been one-up'd by bands that have taken its ideas of 'pop vs. noise' to their expanded, inevitable conclusions. I've always felt like Sonic Youth is like The Velvet Underground (and Nico too for that matter) on steroids. Even VU frontmant Lou Reed seems more content with a more stripped-down, straight-forward sound than what is presented on the album with Nico.

So what I'm getting at is this-- why start with 'The Velvet Underground and Nico?' Isn't it a little similar in mood to Beck's own 2008 album 'Modern Guilt?' Is he still stuck in dark mode? I love this cover; I think it's on par with the original album's version, but we're talking about Beck here! I'm hoping I'm not the only one who wants to see him cover something like 'Remain In Light' by Talking Heads or even Public Enemy's 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.' I'm growing weary of seeing artists take such huge strides to pound the nail of "Look how serious I am" into the artistic ground, when carefree Beck albums like Odelay and Midnite Vultures are equally, if not more, satisfying than any super-serious, lyrically-conscious album they could possibly churn out. I suppose that with maturity comes sulleness.

Actually, I know that not to be the case as there are plenty of artists much older than Beck who cut loose with near-youthful abandon (I may get to that in a later post). Still, I suppose I should remind myself that Beck is one of those artists who doesn't always do what we want him to do, and, more often than not, that's what makes him great. And, sense I happen to know that some pretty kooky artists like MGMT are to be tossed into the Record Club mix, I think we can be hopeful about the future of its releases.

EDIT: I'm dumb. Beck's website clearly states that they almost covered Digital Underground. Personally, I would have prefered that-- and it would have nullified my 'sulleness' argument.