Archive for February, 2015

Beck Sucks I Love Beck

Tuesday, February 24th, 2015

Sorry for totally breaking my one post a week rule. Life has gotten very interesting as of late.

Interesting in a good way! But interesting in a way that has made it difficult to dedicate time to writing. Still and yet, I did manage to get one more installment of my Scrunged series up, this time looking at Bush. Take a look if you’d like to read my thoughts on one of the most forgettable multi-platinum rock bands of all-time.

Beck
Jack-Ass (Butch Vig Mix)
Devil’s Haircut (Remix By Mickey P.)
Okay, I need to rant about Beck winning album of the year at the Grammys. I know I’m late but I need to Kanye this shit.

That Beck album is garbage. Hot garbage. It’s sad bastard bullshit music for sad bastards. I’m sorry. I tried to listen to the entire thing but I just couldn’t. It’s boring, musically, lyrically, thematically, just about in every damn way imaginable. It has to be Beck’s worst album since Sea Change, another overrated piece of trash that critics have needlessly gone gaga over ever since its first release.

Beck’s best album is Midnite Vultures. I mean it.

What the hell is so special about Sea Change and Morning Phase? Both records could just be renamed Sad Man Sits In Front Of A Microphone And Whines.

Whoop.

De.

Shit.

Midnite Vultures, on the other hand, is a work of a wondrous genius. It’s Beck taking Prince and doing Prince better than 90% of Prince’s output for the past 20+ years. Taking funk and injecting it with an utterly leftfield production style and some of the strangest lyrics ever committed to tape. “Sexx Laws,” amazing. “Nicotine & Gravy,” funkified masterwork.” “Peaches & Cream,” down and dirty funk of the funkiest funkitude. And don’t even get me started on “Debra,” easily one of the greatest slow jams in history.

Midnite Vultures remains an entirely unique record not only in Beck’s discography, but in popular music. It’s a damn tragedy that it’s fallen to the wayside. First to Sea Change and now to Morning Phase.

Fuck sad beck. Funky beck for life.

Nirvana
Smells Like Teen Spirit (AV8 Remix 1)
Smells Like Teen Spirit (AV8 Remix 2)
Bootleg hip-house mixes from 2009. The first is rather standard, and just injects some added beats and an inane MC. The second is far more…well, I was going to say “interesting,” but maybe I should just be honest and go with “stupid.” It’s not even a remix as it is an entirely original rap track with the backing track of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” haphazardly plastered over it.

I mean, I love it, but I think Morning Phase is bullshit and Midnite Vultures is one of the best albums of the 20th century, so I’m obviously not one who should be trusted in the slightest.

Posted in Beck, Nirvana, remixes | 22 Comments »

Obscure Remixes By Oscar Winners

Friday, February 13th, 2015

High-caliber talent tonight.

12 Rounds
Pleasant Smell (Rethought By Trent Reznor, Keith Hillebrandt and Clint Mansell)
Pleasant Smell (Rethought By Charlie Clouser)
Pleasant Smell (Sniper’s Rit n Run Vocal Mix)
Pleasant Smell (Rethought By Clint Mansell And Keith Hillebrandt)
Pleasant Smell (Sniper’s Regular Specials Dub)
12 Rounds is a lesser-known industrial rock act from the mid-90s. They released two albums, Jitter Juice in 1996, and My Big Hero in 1998. That second album was on Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records and in fact the group went into the studio to record a third album, which was to be produced by Reznor, but it was never released.

I should probably point out at this time that 12 Rounds is singer Claudia Sarne and Atticus Ross, the latter of whom you may recognize as a frequent Trent Reznor collaborator. He produced/programmed every Nine Inch Nails album since With Teeth; was a member of Reznor’s side-project How To Destroy Angels; and served as co-composer with Reznor for the Academy Award winning score to The Social Network, as well as the scores to Gone Girl and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Pretty big step up from “dude in a band that opened for Sneaker Pimps.”

It’s funny that two of these remixes feature Clint Mansell, who also was a member of a lesser-known rock/industrial act (Pop Will Eat Itself) before abandoning the pop world and becoming an incredibly successful composer who has worked on films such as Requiem For A Dream, Black Swan, Moon and, um Doom. I sincerely believe it’s just a matter of time before he wins an Oscar as well, which will definitely make that remix the only alt-rock/industrial track featuring the work of three Academy Award winners.

Ryuichi Sakamoto
Heartbeat (Dance Mix)
Heartbeat (Tainai Kaiki II) – Returning To The Womb
Heartbeat (Ambiant Mix)
I’ll be honest, I’m just including these remixes tonight so I can say that this post has not one, not two, but three Academy Award winning composers (Sakamoto won for The Last Emperor). Also, that last track name isn’t a typo, it’s “ambiant.” I don’t know why.

 

Posted in 12 Rounds, remixes, Ryuichi Sakamoto | 2 Comments »

Remixes I Forgot I Bought

Monday, February 9th, 2015

Time to clean house with shit I’ve had in my backlog for over a year.

DJ Rap
Good To Be Alive (Johnny Vicious Short Epic Mix)
Good To Be Alive (Johnny Vicious Dub)
Good To Be Alive (Dronez Vocal Mix)
Good To Be Alive (Dronez Dub)
I will be entirely honest and say that I know very little about DJ Rap. I know she’s immensely talented, and that most of her popular work (house/dance music) has little in common with most of her actual work (drum and bass/jungle). I also know that this song was in the film Go, a movie that I have to re-watch someday to see if it has become a wonderful time capsule of the late-90s or a horribly dated Pulp Fiction rip-off. I suspect it is some combination.

Anyway. Yeah, even at the time that I bought this I neither knew much nor cared about DJ Rap. In fact, I don’t even know when I bought this record. I know I recorded it to my computer near the tail-end of 2013, but that just means I recorded it during my marathon recording session in which I digitized every single record in my collection that I hadn’t yet. As the clock was ticking before I packed them all up in storage before my big move to Japan. I suspect I probably had this record in my “to record” pile for over year before I actually recorded it.

Thinking about it now, this record very much serves as an example as how I used to buy records, and serves as a contrast to how I buy music now.

When I was living in Pittsburgh, in a rather large house, I was buying records like no tomorrow. I lived right by Jerry’s Records, the largest vinyl-only record shop in the world, and had vast amounts of disposable income and time (for reasons that I am not getting into).

Turns out that time + money + space = far too many needless purchases. Some of this worked out for the best. I would have never discovered Slow Bongo Floyd, Fay Ray, The Hitmen or countless other forgotten acts if it wasn’t for my nearly indiscriminate record buying habits.

But at the same time, it kind of turned listening to music into a chore. When you buy anywhere between 10 and 30 12″ singles and LPs a week, it doesn’t allow for much time to really absorb music. My turntable became a revolving door, and making the time to actually set aside music to review became increasingly difficult.

Now, with limited space and time, my record buying habits have drastically changed. With rare exception, I find myself buying no more than three or so LPs a day, and they’re usually albums. And my reasons for buying music has changed as well. Before I was often grabbing music solely because I thought it was out-of-print or hard-to-find, making it prime fodder for this blog. That was regardless of whether I thought I would like it or not (this explains why I at one point owned 12 Leather Nun records). Now I actually buy music because I think I’ll like it. I know, a crazy concept. Although I still do buy a hefty amount of records and CDs simply because I think they’re stupid, weird or idiotic, how else would I have bought that Hulk Hogan LP?

But yeah, I did buy this single, and I recorded it. So I guess I should finally share it. So to the one person out there who wants it, enjoy!

The Shamen
Make It Mine (Hilltop Mix)
Move Any Mountain (Progen 91) (Land Of Oz)
Move Any Mountain (Progen 91) (Rude)
Move Any Mountain (Progen 91) (Bang To The Beat)
Move Any Mountain (Progen 91) (Beltram Dub)
Move Any Mountain (Progen 91) (The Bones Break Mastermix)
The Sound Of Pro-Gen (Horns, Guitars, Keyboards, Chorus, Bang, No. 1)
Everything I just said about the DJ Rap single does double here.

 

Posted in DJ Rap, remixes, The Shamen | 1 Comment »