Bee Gees

I remember discovering a copy of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in my parents' pile of old LPs when I was about eight or nine, one of the many copies that was bought and played on a compulsory basis in 1977 and neglected after the widely-reported "death" of disco. At this point, well-worn copies of the Fever soundtrack are much rarer than near mint ones.

The sleeve caught my attention well before the music. The clothes enthralled me to the point where they were more like alien curios than the outdated styles of 20 years prior. And at the center of this sartorial archaeology stood the Bee Gees, looking like intergalactic deities guarding the secret of their powerful, unearthly falsetto harmonies as Travolta strains to touch his idols like the hand of Adam reaching out to God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Holy, thy name is Gibb.




It's a rare Bee Gees hit from this era that doesn't rely on a Barry Gibb lead vocal. The group's calling card, "Stayin' Alive," is synonymous with disco itself despite being a poor representation of the aims of the vast majority of disco songs. In a genre primarily used to score continuous stretches of two very popular and spontaneous forms of cardiovascular exercise, "Alive" is a sideways commentary about dancing while enduring unemployment, urban decay, and other ungroovy things.. Though I'm still confused about the meaning of lyrics like "We can try/to understand/the New York Times' affect on man," I do know that they are deeper than required for a goddamn club song. Of the Fever hits, "You Should Be Dancing" does the best job of equating dancing and sex, but the Bee Gees never seemed to embrace gitter-ball hedonism like the true progenitors of the disco scene. Would you get excited about dancing to a song called "Tragedy"?








The brothers Gibb were probably one of the first groups to apply real pop songcraft to the extended-play dance workout and reap the spoils accordingly. But the flip side of re-defining disco was having that privilege wrested away from them almost immediately and being forever equated with cheesy outfits, dancing hopelessly flailing coke fiends, and vacuous narcissists. That's why "How Deep Is Your Love" has always stood out to me as a respite from the emotional thunder, a low-key R&B number comparable to the Bee Gees' earlier, more sentimental pop hits like "I Started A Joke." The Gibbs nearly had the memory of their early career entirely wiped out by their later success, but songs like "How Deep Is Your Love" remind us that they always knew what they were doing, even when things got out of control.

Beck

The darling of the postmodern age, Mr. Bek David Campbell was once the definition of American post-grunge "alternative," inasmuch it was difficult to describe what sort of music he was creating. Rock, funk, electro-folk, hip-hop sampling, ironic rapping - you never quite knew what to expect from a Beck album. He's more straightforward these days and seemingly in a rush to look like Tom Petty circa 1989, but I cut him a lot of slack. He's earned it.

Ah, the youthful monkeyshines of "Loser," a head-scratching number that combines a raga beat with trailer park imagery and a Spanish-language hook. It sounds like a laconic version of the Beastie Boys who traded in their brass monkeys for Budweisers.





People call "Loser" a 'slacker anthem' but that's a misnomer. It's more like a working-class slimeball anthem, a self-aware "here I am, poor and weird, and what are you going to do about it?" It's a sentiment all but lost on the radio after the alternative boom, and now we have to listen to Bruno Mars whining about how he wants to be a billionaire so frickin' bad. Mellow Gold is likewise comfortable in its own skin, a collection of trashy folkie sludge composed amongst imaginary swaps of flies and pyramids of empty beer cans.





Along come the Dust Brothers on Odelay, helping Beck fashion the hillbilly rock-rap on Mellow Gold into a hip, crowd-pleasing musical collage, an approach that spawned hits like "Devils Haircut" and "Where It's At." Call it a second, more commercially successful pass at Paul's Boutique. Odelay also sees Beck still showing his "Loser" roots on the soulful "Jack-ass"; the braying donkey at the end lets you know he hasn't lost his sense of humor.





The Odelay formula basically set Beck up for life, but it also typecast him as a deadpan white rapper, someone to be trotted out to make your movie or TV show soundtrack seem kooky and hip. His resistance to this only made him more fascinating to watch as he tried on a variety of stylistic hats - the hair-raising funk of Midnite Vultures, the darkroom philosophy of The Information, the deep audio pleasures of Modern Guilt (...and garage rock revival on the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World OST, but that's another post).

Vultures separates itself from the rest of Beck's genre-shifting partially because it's shockingly masterful throwback to Ohio Players and Funkadelic and Prince, and partially because it contains "Mixed Bizness," the song that turned me on to American alternative in the seventh grade. Though I was mostly unaware of him at the time, Beck's performance of "Bizness" at the 2000 American Music Awards completely transfixed me. Gas masks, superhero capes, sit-ups, crazy skinny man dancing - it was the coolest thing I had ever seen on television. The music video only ups the ante.





The oddest thing about Midnite Vultures is that, like a discofied Ziggy Stardust, this was a one-and-done version of Beck. But damn, that record gave us so much greatness like "Nicotine and Gravy" and "Debra" and the "Sexx Laws" video featuring kitchen appliances fornicating in the presence of Jack Black. What a magical time.





The divergent Mutations (a title he should have saved for the greatest hits comp) really sounds like a transition album, its nascent introspection ("Nobody's Fault But My Own") not fitting with the leftovers from Odelay ("Diamond Bollocks"). However, it foreshadowed a mood that Beck would perfect four years later on Sea Change.

A superior breakup album from a normally playful artist, Sea Change can be a painful listen. Inspired by the ugly end of Beck's nine-year relationship with his then-fiancée, it isn't the thinly veiled vitriol of pop kiss-offs from the likes of Taylor Swift or Justin Timberlake, but it doesn't nibble around the edges either. Beck makes sadness interesting by refusing to write straight-up weepies and instead adorns the songs with little synth whorls and his groaning baritone. Even his pain has an evolved sense of musicality.





"Little One" threatens 'In the sea change/Nothing is safe' and portends a creative revolution, if not personal ruin, so it's fitting that Beck's next move was to bring it all back home with Guero.

Coming of age after "Loser" and Odelay, it is somewhat inevitable that I consider Guero Beck's finest album. Reunited with the Dust Brothers, he throws together all the styles and influences he's played with to create one whopper of a record packed with wit, nostalgia, and just plain cool ideas. It has astounding replayability despite its overexposure (the Guerolito remix album, the 8-bit Hell Yes EP) and having perhaps a few tracks too many - still, you can go 11 deep and pick any one of them as a fan favorite.

Los Angeles is the songwriter's foil to New York City, with the latter inspiring decades of songs of praise and pride and the former relegated mostly to tunes describing its anxiety and malaise and disappointment or reveling in its superficiality. But Guero finds Beck celebrating his hometown in "Qué Onda Guero," an affirmation of the LA beyond Sunset and Santa Monica Boulevards. Easily overlooked since it is sandwiched between the record's two big singles ("E-Pro" and "Girl"), "Qué Onda Guero" is one of Beck's most effortless and densely mythological performances. Behold the origin story of the archetypal American whiteboy.

The Beatles

The Beatles
I am not ashamed to admit that the first and only Beatles album I physically owned was 1, given to me by a relative for Christmas. This is a source of derision for my friends who spilled out of the womb singing “Hey Jude.” The truth is that the Beatles didn’t have much of a direct impact on me until the world starting telling me that they should. (Indirectly, well…I was a big Oasis fan, but that’s a story for another post.)

I attended a middle school dance not long after 1’s release where the DJ claimed that there was a band that people had been “requesting all night long” and that he’d finally throw them a bone. He then played some weird Beatles megamix that wasn’t so great for dancing but splendid for inviting 12-year-olds to scream “She loves you/Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” in each other’s faces.

1 is actually a remarkable album showcasing the band’s mastery of the short pop single – few of the tracks break the 3-minute mark. It’s a fine collection of their standards that gets pretty weird near the end. I loved “The Ballad of John and Yoko” and especially “Lady Madonna” because I never really grasped how either of these songs could be number ones, at least not in today's world.

Nobody needs me to tell them that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is pretty great, so let me just say that Sgt. Pepper’s is real fucking good. The highlight for me is “With a Little Help From My Friends,” which of course sounded so alien to me after The Wonder Years pounded Joe Cocker’s devastatingly lonely version into my brain. These days I prefer the goofy Ringo Starr-driven version. It’s got a sweet, bouncy camaraderie that's fitting for a song about the people who tolerate and indulge your petty insecurities (and create beautiful harmonies to compensate for your utilitarian singing voice). Now I can’t imagine it being any better without Starr’s lilting nasal vocal.

Pound for pound, Sgt. Pepper’s is comparable to its major creative impetus, the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. Perhaps the highs aren’t as high, but “Getting Better” and “A Day In the Life” are nice pieces of work.

My earliest Beatles “experience” was with The Beatles (White Album), for which I pegged them as some sort of novelty country-western outfit. When I had my fill of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill,” I would switch to the only other Beatles CD my parents owned, Anthology, and cue up “Twist and Shout.” I'd like to say that this confused chronology was the reason I gave up on the Beatles for a while, but the truth is that my Weird Al cassettes weren't going to listen to themselves.

I don’t recall ever making it past “Bungalow Bill” on The Beatles – unless you count “Birthday,” which fit the silly personas I had created in my head for the group – but I have come to realize that riffing on the novelty of pop music is one of the main themes of the album, which is peppered with self-deprecation and satire. “Back In the U.S.S.R.” is Dr. Strangelove plugged into a Marshall stack and “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” still has the Charles Schultz estate pissed, I imagine. Finally, I love the fact that Lennon and McCartney wrote most of the songs for this record – the band’s most playful by far – surreptitiously during a meditation retreat where they were explicitly instructed not to work. It means that two of the greatest musical talents of our time kept evolving through their connection to the world and other people, not knocking about in some sealed creative fortress native to monolithic geniuses and demi-gods.

The Beatles is also a cipher for decoding the four personalities that could soothe and enrage each other. Paul unleashing his inner vaudevillian (“Martha My Dear”) while trying to maintain some sort of rock cred (“Helter Skelter”). George writing interesting and melancholy songs that aren’t full of interminable sitar bullshit (“While My Guitar Gently Weeps”). Ringo just trying to act like when we all still a family and happy together (“Don’t Pass Me By”). And John the artiste blessing us with his avant-garde sound collage (“Revolution 9”) that also happens to contain our first Yoko Ono sighting. It’s a record that goes a long way in establishing the members of the Beatles as ‘problematic’ archetypes – each predictable in their own way but still capable of anything in their little collective of one-upmanship.

“Glass Onion,” a John song, is the most telling of the lot. In a salacious interpretation, “Onion” is Lennon’s frustration with the band’s detours into pop nonsense and minor dalliances with a groovy worldview. Referencing multiple songs in the back catalog, he seems kind of irritated that none of them are as ostensibly useful as a bauble that can let you “See how the other half lives.” He might even be pointing a holier-than-thou finger at McCartney – “Well here’s another clue for you all/The walrus was Paul” – even though John was the one behind “I Am the Walrus.” Or he’s just having a laugh. Point is, The Beatles sounds like it pushed everyone significantly closer to the breaking point. Though not a sustainable model for any band, it did lead to an especially transcendent two and a half years of music.

Oh yeah, Abbey Road is pretty good too. “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” is a waste of time but the side two medley more than makes up for it with its supreme ambition and callbacks to their prowess with songs lasting 150 seconds or less. Abbey Road is also, in my opinion, their most impressive album from a vocal standpoint. “Something” and “Octopus’s Garden” simply fit George and Ringo, and there’s some great about-to-burst-into-tears singing on “Golden Slumbers” that's even better than the dramatic blubbering on “The Long and Winding Road.” But Paul is the winner here, demonstrating a knack for rock vocals after “U.S.S.R.” and “Helter Skelter” with the wrenching “Oh! Darling.”

Among the chaff are some introspective highlights from Rubber Soul, including “Norwegian Wood” and “In My Life”…and also “Drive My Car,” perhaps the filthiest Beatles song (hint: the car is Paul’s penis). Also, is it such a surprise that a dour, pretentious, annoying Beatles movie musical would be titled after the dour, pretentious, annoying “Across the Universe”?

Revisiting the Beatles has confirmed two things for me: one, you miss out on a lot when all you have is a greatest hits album; and two, I am more of a McCartney than a Lennon. To me, Paul is the one element without which the Beatles could not have existed, a self-conscious, striving dude that people could relate to apart from the preternatural musical gifts. In my notes for this post I was actually harder on John. Part of me still feels put off by a smug and sarcastic manner that becomes more prevalent in the band’s later work. That’s the way it comes across to me, at least – the proto-hipster.

But he was still capable of letting his guard down in his songs, his emotional distance unable to conquer the deepest pain of anyone in the band. The “hurt Beatle” was an enigma, a poet, and a brute, seemingly determined to have people indulge him as an adult in a way that he wasn’t as a child. And he wasn’t busy proving what a nonconformist he was, the boy came out, sharing his passion for rock ‘n roll with other like-minded kids. Whenever I hear “Don’t Let Me Down,” I can’t help but wonder if he really wrote it for Yoko (as he claimed) or for himself.