“Label | Matador
Producer | Jon Spencer + Jim Waters
Art Direction | Danny Clinch
Nationality | USA
Running Time | 45:10
To follow his avant-garde punk project Pussy Galore, Jon Spencer celebrated the power and potency of the blues. With previous albums, critics childed Spencer for failed to make music consistent with the band’s name. This time, he ensured the blues was number one.
Few albums open in such a confrontational manner. “Skunk” commences with an incandescent scream and keeps kicking with Russell Simins’ resonant drums. Spencer’s performance takes Elvis’ sexuality and gives it a punk inflection. On “Wail”, he is part Southern Baptist preacher, part bar room blues brawler. “2Kindsa Love” seesaws between his screams and Judah Bauer’s discordant rhythm guitar assault.
The attempt to live up to the Blues Explosion tag was obvious. “Chicken Dog” pays tribute to Rufus Thomas’s R&B novelties “Walkin’ The Dog” and “Do The Funky Chicken” – and features Thomas himself on vocals. “We offered him a hundred bucks,” reported Simins, “and he came straight down…at 78 he’s like the worlds oldest teenager.” Later, “R.L. Got Soul” continues the band’s efforts to raise awareness of enigmatic bluesman R.L. Burnside, who they had back on his A Ass Pocket of Whiskey
Jim Waters and Spencer’s raw production captures the essence of the band’s manic live show. While the album title might suggest Spencer has something to fear, in truth it is the listener who is forced to cower. PE”
Label | Bong Load
Producer | Various
Art Direction | Robert Fisher Beck Hansen
Nationality USA
Running Time | 51:28
On Odelay, his second major-label album, Beck Hansen had something to prove. With 1994 single “Loser” he had had huge success. The song was dubbed a “slacker anthem,” its chorus (“I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you BECK!ODELAY
kill me”) a global slogan, while the then 24-year-old was anointed poster boy for Generation X.
But the Los Angeleno was no dope-addled waster. “Loser” was as ironic as his indie song “MTV Makes Me Want To Smoke Crack.” He was a restlessly inventive musical magpie, as enthused about folk as he was about hip hop, as adept at the moonwalk as at throwing rock-dude shapes, someone who knew his way round lo-fi recording techniques but also how to harness cutting-edge recording technology.
With Odelay he alchemized all these disparate ideas into one vibrant whole. Beck hooked up with The Dust Brothers, the producer-artists responsible for the vibrant buzz of The Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. It was an inspired union: first track “Devils Haircut” alone boasts a James Brown sample, big fat riffs, superfly beats, and a day-glo collage of sonic tricks and quirks. “The New Pollution” starts as cheesy easy listening before hijacking the rhythms of The Beatles’ “Taxman.” “Where It’s At” is funkified hip hop. “Jack-Ass” is a clip- clopping country ballad, built around Them’s sublime cover of Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”
Dazzlingly eclectic, Odelay is the sound of a young maverick having delirious fun and feeling his way forwards. It sold two million copies, spawned a rash of MTV hits and won two Grammies. A new kind of genius had arrived. CM
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