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Rating: The debut of Beck in 1994 was a hard blow to absorb, even for a fertile and heterogeneous period like a decade ago. The arrival on the American market of this Swedish jack-of-all-trades left the already disoriented listeners of the time enchanted, who, adrift between the last remnants of grunge and the new forays of punk-revival, emo, britpop, trip-hop, and much more, didn't know which direction to turn their ears. Thus "Mellow Gold" arrived out of nowhere, a disturbing artfully muddled smoothie between past and present like the strange creature that animates the hallucinatory and almost luciferian cover. A mix between a robot equipped with everything, including a penis, and an ancient unicorn animal skull. Behind it, a bewildered blonde with aviator glasses and an air of being misunderstood. Instead, it will be a beautiful discovery to unwrap the magical, distorted, restless yet calm world, into which we are dragged in slow motion.
"Loser" already sounds like a manifesto, the apathetic joy of being losers and being proud of it. A neo-folk background tinged with electronics, bizarre and humorous effects accompany the new celebration of the geek who becomes "cool," despite Moretti and Penthotal. This aura of mutant blues will wander throughout the entire album, aided by a refined succession of furious electro-metal sorties ("Soul Suckin Jerk") with gospel undertones, pseudo-existential folk-beat ("Truckdrivin Neighbors Downstairs"), ballads from cotton plantations but set in the near future ("Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997"), death-industrial lo-fi ("Mutherfuker"), and much, much more. The gentle singing induces us to accompany without fear on the passenger side of this journey that seems more like a parodic homage to America, what it represents, from Robert Johnson to Chuck Berry, Motown, and the Byrds, up to the Beastie Boys and the most obsessive, post-modern hip-hop. Yes, because Beck begins with this first work his journey as a bizarre post-rock minstrel, the bard who starts from everything to reach the unknown, a new musical approach that will then become the predominant trend of the new millennium. The encyclopedic tendency to feel on top of a mountain of records, stories, myths, legends, meteors, and milestones. The awareness of the power of music, its effects, the ability to spread a melody across continents, the possibility of being understood by everyone speaking a Babel-like language. What Beck was doing will then become what we are now, a continuous retrieval from the past, a race to who composes the most colorful and best-fitting puzzle, blending genres with many confusing catchphrases. Beck doesn't need categorizations, he's a step ahead of the others just because he adores what he does, without significant strategies, just crazy love and dependence on art. Once the Bentley speeds up and our protagonist goes wild, we initially become fearful... have we embarked on the right journey? Indeed, the album, after making us minimally accustomed to its strange attire, opens immediately and showcases its best part. Curses, love paranoia, poetry about sunsets, about darkness, the headlights off in the night of Mogolian memory, the stink of feet and witticisms. Sweetness. That infinite bitter sweetness of "Steal My Body Home," a prayer, a plea, the "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" of the '90s. Eyes lost in the mirror, someone spills out the acoustic tail with strings of "Blackhole." We are urged to wake up, but to do it slowly, like in a voodoo ritual that acts more on the psychological than the physical side. Beck's voice chews words mumbling true feelings, we feel full, our eyes moist. In this crystalline enchantment, after a final spin inside a rollercoaster-shaped dishwasher, we return in front of our house, and we are moved.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Loser (03:55)
In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey
Butane in my veins and I'm out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs, spray-paint the vegetables
Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose
Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
Stock car flamin' with a loser and the cruise control
Babies in Reno with the vitamin D
Got a couple of couches, sleep on the love-seat
Someone came in sayin' I'm insane to complain
About a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt
Don't believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face with some mace in the dark
Savin' all your food stamps and burnin' down the trailer park
(Yo. Cut it.)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Double-barrel buckshot)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare
Ban all the music with a phony gas chamber
'Cause one's got a weasel and the other's got a flag
One's on the pole, shove the other in a bag
With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose-job
The daytime crap of the folksinger slob
He hung himself with a guitar string
A slab of turkey-neck and it's hangin' from a pigeon wing
You can't write if you can't relate
Trade the cash for the beef for the body for the hate
And my time is a piece of wax fallin' on a termite
That's chokin' on the splinters
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Get crazy with the cheeze whiz)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Drive-by body-pierce)
(Yo bring it on down)
Soy
(chorus backwards)
(I'm a driver, I'm the winner; things are gonna change I can feel it)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(I can't believe you)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Sprechen sie Deutsche, baby?)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Know what I'm sayin'?)
04 Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997 (03:28)
One more time
I was born in this hotel, washing dishes in the sink
Magazines and free soda, trying hard not to think
Lay it on to the dawn, everything we've done is wrong
I'll be lonesome when I'm gone, lay it on to the dawn
She can talk to squirrels
Coming back from the convalescent home
Staring at sports cars
Crying
Rattlesnake on the ceiling, gun powder on my sleeve
I will live here forever with the ocean and the bees
Lay it on to the dawn, everything we've done is wrong
I'll be lonesome when I'm gone, lay it on to the dawn
Lay it on to the dawn
Lay it on to the dawn
Lay it on to the dawn
05 Soul Suckin Jerk (03:56)
I got a job making money for the man
throwing chicken in the bucket with the
soda pop can
puke green uniform on my back
I had to set it on fire in a vat of chicken fat
I leaped on the counter like a bird with no hair
running through the mini mall in my underwear
I got lost downtown couldn't find a ride home
sun went down I got frozen to the bone
'til a hooker let me share her fake fur coat
as I took a little nap the cops picked up us both I tried to explain I was only trying to get warm
I knew I never ever should have burnt my uniform
he said 'too bad, better bite the bullet hard son'
I didn't have no teeth so I stole his gun
and I crawled out the window with my shadow on a spoon
dancing on the roof, shooting holes in the moon
get busy, get busy, you know it
I ain't gonna work for no soul suckin jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't sayin jack
I ain't gonna work for no soul suckin jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't sayin jack
standing right here with a beer in my hand
and my mouth is full of sand and I don't understand
fourteen days I been sleeping in a barn
better get a paycheck tattooed on my arm
whistlin dixie with the dixie cup filled
with the barbecue sauce and the dental floss chill
big fat fingers pointing into my face
telling me to get busy cleaning up this place
I got bent like a wet cigarette
and she's coming after me with a butterfly net
ridin on a bloodhound ringing the bell
black cat wrapped in the road map to hell
pencil on my leg and I'm trying not to beg
taking turns bakin worms with the bacon and eggs
well they got me in a bird cage flappin my jaw like a pretzel in the stars just waitin to fall
so give me what I got to get so I can go
cause I ain't washin dishes in the ditch no more
and I ain't gonna work for no soul suckin jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't sayin jack
and I ain't gonna work for no soul suckin jerk
I'm gonna take it all back and I ain't sayin jack
06 Truckdrivin Neighbors Downstairs (Yellow Sweat) (02:55)
[Neighbor 1:] "Come on, motherfucker. Put your clothes on, come on. Asshole!"
[Neighbor 2:] "You lousy puke!"
[Neighbor 3:] "Fuck you!"
[Neighbor 2:] "Why don't you call your mommy?"
[Neighbor 3:] "You're a fucking drunk."
[Neighbor 2:] "Yeah, I'm a fucking drunk..."
[Neighbor 1:] "Come on, motherfucker."
[Neighbor 2:] "...But you're a lousy lowlife who can't do nothing' for himself."
Acid casualty with a repossessed car
Vietnam vet playing' air guitar
It's just the shit-kicking', speed-taking'
Truck-driving' neighbors downstairs
Yeah...yeah
Whiskey-stained buck-toothed
Backwards creep
Grizzly bear motherfucker
Never goes to sleep
It's just the shit-kicking', speed-taking'
Truck-driving' neighbors downstairs
Oh, yeah...yeah
Belly flopping' naked
In a pool of yellow sweat
Screaming' jackass with a wet cigarette
It's just the shit-kicking', speed-taking'
Truck-driving' neighbors downstairs
Oh
Oh, my goodness
Oh...
Mmm...
Psychotic breakdown double-edged axe
Growing' hair like a shag rug
On his greasy back
It's just the shit-kicking', speed-taking'
Truck-driving' neighbors downstairs
Oh my goodness
Oh my goodness
Oh, yeah
Come on, honey
Feel the grease, grease, grease
Come on, honey, feel the grease
Oh, my goodness
Come on, honey, feel the grease
Oh yeah
Come on, lay it on me
Bring it down one more time
07 Sweet Sunshine (04:17)
Touch me on the inside with a finger full of gravy
Gonna get you on the sofa, lady wanna shake and bake me
Bucket full of blood, got you on my mind
Gonna break my face on the sweet sunshine
Bucket full of blood, got you on my mind
Gonna break my face on the sweet sunshine
I wanna get up off the floor, I wanna run to the devil and get me some more
I wanna get up off the floor, I wanna run to the devil and get me some more
Power through the ?? with a hard wind screaming
With a scumbag soul and a body always screaming
Grab your wife, tell me where you been
With a firing pan and the moon gettin' thin
Grab your wife, tell me where you been
With a violent feeling and the moon gettin' thin
I wanna climb up on the wall, I wanna swing through the city on a wreckin' ball
I wanna climb up on the wall, I wanna swing through the city on a wreckin' ball
Hail to the dawning of the plentiful sensation
Cosmic time and full of sound and I killed my imagination
Bucket full of blood, got you on my mind
Gonna break my face on the sweet sunshine
Bucket full of blood, got you on my mind
Gonna break my face on the sweet sunshine
I wanna get up off the floor, I wanna run to the devil and get me some more
I wanna get up off the floor, I wanna run to the devil and get me some more
08 Beercan (04:00)
Alcohol on my hands, I got plans to ditch myself and get outside
Dancing women throwing plates, decapitating their laughing dates
Swirling chickens caught in flight, out of focus and much too bright
Coming down, shiny teeth, game show suckers trying to breathe
But I got a drug and I got the bug and I got something better than love
How you like me now? Pretty good
Going on, feeling strong
I quit my job blowing leaves, telephone bills up my sleeves
Choking like a one man dustball, freedom rock slimeball talking in code
We went down, lit up the shack, grabbed me a beer out of the sack
Everybody bent over twice, painting the walls, throwing some dice
Leaping up into the air getting juiced up beyond belief
And they were singin' like this!
Winos throwing frisbees at the sun, burnt my soul between the bun
Now I'm wounded, now I'm drunk, now I'm runnin' like a flaming pig
Oh yeah, scraping off the attitude, old man eating all my food
Don't be kind, don't be rude, just shake your boots and let it all get loose
Oh yeah, my goodness
Fluffy clouds, lovely rainbows
I'm sad, a soft and snuggly place
Fluffy clouds, I'm sad and unhappy...yppahnu dna das
Winos throwing frisbees at the sun, burnt my soul between the bun
Now I'm wounded, now I'm drunk, now I'm runnin' like a flaming pig
Oh yeah, scraping off the attitude, old man eating all my food
Don't be kind, don't be rude, just shake your boots and let it all get loose
Oh yeah, I like it like that
Oh that is cold
Somebody put a flamethrower on that
Uh-huh, oh my goodness!
Take me down to the depot
Somebody put me down on the bus
Oh yeah, I like it like that
Somebody burn me a plate of sassafrass
Oh yeah...
11 Mutherfuker (02:05)
You know, you know homey don't play like that
Can't believe that shit (?)
Hey Mr. Asshole, what's your big hassle?
Sitting in your castle, judging everyone
Your acting like it's chill while the deal's gettin' ill
Why don't you break your face on my head?
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Total paranoia tryin' to annoy ya
Everything I do is to try and fuck you up
Some trauma true and I was such a spasm
Drop yourself on the situation, dude
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Ahhhh!
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
Everyone's out to get you, motherfucker
12 Blackhole (07:33)
When we, when we looking for a better home
Got me, got me burning out a light bulb
Cloudy, cloudy holding to a wastecan
Yellow car, yellow car put me inside there
Wake up, wake up nothing's gonna harm you
Glass wall, glass wall standing on the furniture
Little boy, little boy layin' in a sleeping bag
Watchin', watchin' through the cracks in his eyelids
Stranger, stranger feeding on the broken snow
Lost head, lost tread staring through the orange juice
Alphabet, alphabet can't afford a telephone
Blackhole, blackhole nothing's gonna harm you
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