Mellow Gold [Explicit Lyrics]

...And you get a pretty apt description of this load of garbage. I'm sick of people making over Beck as if he was some kind of mystical unfathomable genius of our times...this is radio ready corporate garbage of the highest order...and it's all been done before.I think David Bowie was quoted as saying "It's not who does it first...It's who does it second"...a fitting quote in the context of this over-hyped over-played album.You see,Beck thinks he can take the "Salvador Dali" approach to his art...weird for weird's sake.Salvador Dali once drove a car filled up with cauliflower to a big event..."Look how strange I am everyone" and everyone thought he was some sort of mad genius. Beck tries to do the same with his idiotic stream of consciousness double talk he refers to as his lyrics.Dali was an icon of his particular artistic movement...Beck is not.Beck tries too hard to be weird(ever read or seen an interview with him?...what a pretentious jerk he was on Leno promoting odelay) and needs to learn a simple fact...If you have to try to be something...then you're probably not.What gets me is the people who grew up in the 90's listening to "alternative" radio thinking that when they heard "Loser" they were hearing the prophetic utterings of a new messiah.You really want eccentric?...Well you'll have to look a little harder.Try bands or artists that were never accepted by the mainstream (like the residents,Syd Barrett or R.Stevie Moore to name but a few)and never made a gazillion bucks off of corporate alterna-bilge radio.Odd doesn't always equal genius.In this case it just equals DUMB.

Mellow Gold is a very odd album. It contains very odd music as well as very odd lyrical material. In the hit song, 'Loser' Beck sings, "In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey." This pretty much gives the gist of the entire album. No song sounds the same yet they are all oddly similar.

Though Beck's signature sound comes along with the album, it is vastly different from any of his other material. It contains some very dark songs (Mother....., Truckdrivin' Neighbors Downstairs), some light, happy songs (Pay No Mind, Nitemare Hippy Girl, Sweet Sunshine), and some just plain weird songs (Soul Suckin' Jerk). It's because of the musical diversity on the album that I like it so much.

So if you are a fan of Beck's latter material, namely Odelay, be wary in buying this album because though in my opinion it has some of his best material, the general public might think differently.

I must have played this album at least 50 times in the last 3 years its that good.Back in 1994 Beck was one of the most unusual and original songwriters around.There hasnt been a record written mostly about pure nonsense since Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart.Yep songs like Truckdrivin Neighbors Downstairs(my favorite song right now),Whiskey Clone Hotel City 1997 and even the radio friendly Loser have some pretty unusual lyrics.The vocals and music itself is also great to back it up.I wont write anymore because my fingers are getting sore so go out and buy this for yourself.