Now its really difficult to convey the quality of music he produces...you *have* to chk it out for yourself.. Last i heard, chua joo huat was out of stock..but supreme still has copies of his latest album, Odelay, as well as his earlier ones, including his debut, Mellow Gold, with 'Loser' in it.. Great track. Anyway, i'm not some seasoned music critic or anything like that, but i Do have standards, and as far as i know, Beck is seriously original. His tunes, the arrangment, the rhythms, are All amazing by themselves and potent the way he puts them together. His lyrics, however, are a bit of a mystery...sortof like a slightly more grungy Dylan Thomas perhaps. Poetry rather than prose. If there are any lit students out there who feel the need to draw my blood over that, go and buy the CD first.

        Now to deal with the huge bunch of you who, according to the guestbook, have absolutely no idea who the heck BECK is....

    Let's Start with A brief history of BECK..as far as u'd want to know anyway...:)
Okay.
    I assume u're not so curious about his parentage..So i'll start with how he started...*grin*.
It was the usual..he played with friends and had minor gigs here and there.. then, on the proverbial 'One Day', he happened to write this song as a joke..he called it LOSER. yup. It was HUGE. like that "that thing you do" song in the movie...And so it just flew up the top of the charts, it got overplayed, everyone loved it to death and Beck Hansen scored himself a major record deal with lots of creative luxuries and perks. He released his first album, Mellow Gold, in 1994. It went platinum immediately and he got pretty popular to say the least (cliche cliche).. And then, there were the usual bunch of cynics who just labelled him a sure one-hit-oneder(hee).

BUT.
    In 1996, He released ODELAY.
All the cynics had to shut up. The funny thing though, was that he doesnt do pop. And so, pple like you guys dont really know about him. In any case, you might doubt what i said about him..after all this is just my opinion..if he's so good you shld've heard of him right? hah. you listen to perfect ten and the crap they play. In any case, they *did* play a song of his last year..it's called the Devil's Haircut. It was reasonably popular..in the sense that i heard it often enough to recognise it....:)  but i digress again..    Incidentally, BLUR's Damon Albarn recently named Beck as one of the major influences on Blur's new musical direction.

    "Music's all about ripping shit apart and getting to the bone. I mean, music is supposed to turn you on. Music, now, is so far removed from that primal place that it's meaningless. If you want to know what's really at the heart of my music it's that I'm trying to get back to the primal core, the place where music just works instinctively."
                                                                            - Beck

    While you've been reading all this text, i hope the graphics-intensive bottom part of this page has been nicely loading..Its the collection of all the huge awards Beck won recently... for ODELAY (i.e, 1996-98).  I Told you he was Good. Have a skim through it ya? check out the thank you speech he gave at the VHI fashion awards...and  needless to say, the gorgeous pics of Ol' Blue Eyes... :)
 

    " Welcome Gentle Reader, presented here is a record of our activities and general existence thru the past six months. we have taken to highroads and byways, emcamping briefly in the ports and way stations of the world, to offer our compositions and constructions to the citizens of sound. we vibrate. we reverberate. we are beck. we are not a club, a committee or a subsidiary. we are a miasmic enterprise; a time zone synchronized with dead oceans. upon entering our area, you are no longer a visitor, not a spectator. you are a participant in a crude experiment. once fulfilled, this experiment cancels itself out, the only vestige left - these photographs. let them warm you like the embers from a once noxious conflagration."

                                                  - BECK (intro to Beck: Travels 1997)
  

	39th   GRAMMY AWARDS  Nominatd for :   1) Best Male Rock Vocal Performance   2) Best Alternative Music Performance   3) Best Album of the Year	He Won:   1) Best Alternative Music Performance for  "ODELAY"     2) Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for  "Where It's At"
	SPIN   Magazine  1) 1998 Most Vital Artist in Music Today. (Top 40)  2) The album ODELAY receives a "10" rating.   3) 1996 ARTIST of The Year	Rolling Stones  Magazine   1) Reader's Poll 1998:     Best MALE Performer.  2)  1996 Artist of the Year.    3) Critic's Poll voted Beck as Best Dressed Artist.  4) ODELAY receives FOUR   STARS and is among  Rolling Stone's TOP 200  Best Albums Ever Made
	1997   MTV Video Awards  1) Best MALE Video for  "Devils Haircut"   2) Best Art Direction for   "The New Pollution"  3) Best Direction (Beck    Hansen, director) for  "The New Pollution"        4) Best Choreography for      "The New Pollution"   5) Best Editing for "Devils Haircut"	OTHER  Video Awards      1) At the 7th Annual Music Video Production Awards   in Los Angeles 1997,  He won Alternative  Video Of The Year for   "Devil's Haircut"       2)MuchMusic:People'sChoice  Best International Artist Award 1997  for "Devil's Haircut"
	Fashion Awards  1) Most Stylish MALE  Pop Star"  - 1997 ELLE Style Awards       2) Most Fashionable Artist     - VH1's '97 Fashion Awards	"Thank you VH1 people for   embracing my appearance and bestowing this award certifying the apparel and acroutrements which have clothed me this past season as measuring up to the stringent standards upheld in this arena of style. With gratitude I claim this award and dedicate it to those who have aided me in breaking the fashion barrier: namely Leigh Limon for her impeccable guidance whether I am attired in uniform or civilian clothes, buckskins or bloomers, kimonos or cat socks, loungerie or long johns; cerements or tube socks, espradrilles or chapeau, loin cloth or poncho, skivvies or layette; gaberdine or crash helmet, dashiki or camisole, sombrero or tutu; jackboots or skullcap, codpiece or ascot, Members Only jacket or Yashmac - whether naked or arrayed in the finest livery I will strive to be worthy of this shimmering ideal and scrape brute yet fondly on this zig-zag rampart.   Thank you." - Beck
Where It's At . mid	Personal Awards  1) MelodyMaker magazine:    - Best Solo Artist         - ranked in  Man of the Year      Top 10.  2) New Musical Express      Brat Awards 1997:  - Best Solo Artist of the Year  - 1996 Worldwide Artist Of       the Year.  3) ASCAP 1997 PopAwards  - College Radio Award   4) Select Magazine 1997:   Included in list of The Most       Important People in theWorld.  5) Esquire Magazine:    Among  THE 100 BEST  PEOPLE in  December 1997.   6) Seventeen Magazine:     - Best Performer Of  '97.  7) Cosmopolitan Magazine     Readers' Choice Awards:     - Best Singer, Male  8) Swing Magazine 1997:       Listed as one of The Most Powerful People in Their 20s.  9) People Magazine:   One of their 25 Most    intriguing People.	Album Awards for ODELAY . . 1) Los Angeles Times:     - FOUR STARS  2) The Village Voice:     - Best Album Of the Year   (see Grammy Awards, Spin and Rolling Stones) .  "I get to feel a little competitive. For example, I like Beck now. But when he first came out, I felt that "urrrggghh," just purely from a  he's-the-competition point of view. Not that  we're doing the same thing. I felt stupid even feeling that. But I wanted not to like him. And then I was like, "Your shit's good." Everyone around me--everyone--says he's great, he's great. And I think that last record is great. But it's hard to not feel that sense of  competition." -Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails  (from SPIN magazine)

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