Cormsypoos's Full Review: Mellow Gold [PA] by Beck
Ahh Mellow Gold, what's not to love? This is the album that introduced me to the trash-genius Beck and remains today my fave. Beck's music eludes description, one of the things that I love about it the most, there's no label.... I guess the closest one might come is slacker Gen-X very raw trash-rock.
Mellow Gold sounds like it might have been recorded right behind your house and doesn't apologize for it. As a matter of fact, it's a large part of its charm. The totally pure (read: raw and often off-key and off-rhythm), un-Hollywoodized sound and peppered with totally off-the-wall garage-band lyrics, "get crazy with the cheez whiz... Sprechen Sie Deutch, eh baby?" and "You shouldn't talk to squirrels on your way back form the convalescent home" are exactly what makes me never tire of this CD. It's all about being young, eccentric just to the edge of insanity, and ready to say something to the world -- like "I ain't gonna work with no soul-sucking jerk!"
Mixing everything from mega-electronica to off-key acoustic guitar, sitar, granny-voice interpretations, violin, scratch -n- mix quotables ("I'm sad and unhappy" then reversed "y-hap dna das miiiiihhh") and hey, even a little accordion n harmonica, (hey, why not?) Beck creates a totally unpredictable hodge-podge that has Angst-ridden, ticked-off and/or fed-up 20-something" written all over it. And let's not forget Beck's voice, which morphs from sweet and sensitive to screaming, angry, and/or confused, sometimes where you wouldn't expect it (even within the same song!), just to throw you off....
As aforeinquired, what's not to love? This CD goes against everything you've ever learned about Music with a capital "M." Syncopated rhythm, incongruous styling, mix-n-match roots (hip hop, heavy metal, eastern stylings), Beck's all over the place with Mellow Gold and it's strangley intoxicating (emphasis on the strange....) I've had this CD since it first came out in 1994, and sill listening to it now, I'm amazed at how fresh and hip it is today. Mellow Gold is one of those CDs to take to a desert island, this is genius flexing his expressive muscles.....
Beck starts out in your face and weird with "I'm a Loser," bilingually "Soy un perdedor, so why don't you kill me" with a trashy, unpolished, acoustic charm, and sticks with it for a while, but by number 5 "Soul Suckin' Jerk" we've slowly become more and more electric and more and more eccelctic. Beck holds us as bizarro-world electronic captives through the middle of the CD with forays into the profane "Truckdrivin Neighbors Downstairs," peaking with the ultraweird, electric-voiced "Sweet Sunshine," and then slowly but surely returns to the crappy real world wth "Beercan" and "Steal My Body Home."
No one can better describe this off-the-wall and very very good CD better than Beck himself although he's talking about his "Nitemare Hippy Girl," it just seems so appropriate -- it's "a whimsical, tragical beauty, self-conscious and a little bit moody."
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
![Mellow Gold [PA] by Beck](http://di1.shopping.com/images1/pi/59/da/93/2001990077-177x150-0-0.jpg)
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2008 Shopping.com, Inc.