An after-dinner Beck mint

Alright, now that the big election posts are out of the way, it's back to the random connections that inspired this blog in the first place.

I discovered last week that Beck's song "E-Pro," from his album Guero, samples the drum beat from the Beastie Boys' "So Whatcha Want," from way back on Check Your Head. In fact, Beck gave the Beasties a songwriting co-credit on the track. Both songs are good, especially the original. Incidentally, both songs are in Rock Band 2; once that comes out for the Wii, I'll have to investigate whether the drum parts in the game are tracked the same. Here are the videos:

[E-Pro: Universal Music Group are jerks for disallowing embedding of YouTube videos]

[So Whatcha Want: The Beastie Boys are not jerks
]

This provides me with an opportunity to state that Beck's last really good album was Midnite Vultures in 1999. I'm probably biased, since this came out when I was in college and I listened the hell out of that album for about a year and a half, and even drove 5 hours in a snowstorm to see Beck in Kansas City during that time but dammit, he hasn't been the same since. There are a few cuts on Guero I liked, but the biggest problem I have is that you can't understand his insane lyrics anymore. I mean, what's the point of stringing together bizarre turns of phrase and clever wordplay if you're going to mumble your way through it? I may not know what "Norman Schwartzkopf / somethin' tells me you wanna go home / champagne bottles / custom clothes you own / calling up from special area codes" means, but I could understand the words and it is funky. I'll have to give Modern Guilt a listen, and see if he's cleaned up his act and his diction.

For the record, Odelay was Beck's best album and I wish I could dance like Beck.