Beck
“Sea Change”
Geffen Records
This album, “Sea Change,” is Beck’s
masterpiece. It’s introspective, emotional and brilliant. At
least that’s what everyone was saying even before the album
came out. And some of it is true. The album is very introspective.
“Sea Change” puts Beck’s voice in the forefront.
It is slow and plodding, more melodic than funky. The album is
emotional. The lyrics are simple and raw, often explicitly about
human relationships. But is it brilliant? Well, despite the hype,
and Rolling Stone’s ecstatic five-star review, maybe not.
This is Beck being introspective and emotional, which means
it’s missing a lot of the rough quirky edges and obscure
goofy lyrics that made us all love Beck so much. This is not the
Beck of “Odelay” or “Midnight Vultures,” or
even “Mutations.” “Sea Change” is not the
Beck you can party to. This Beck is indeed quite reflective and
simple, and, well, that leaves a lot to miss. There are some good
songs on this CD to be sure, but Beck simply isn’t at his
best when he’s simplistic. The lyrics aren’t overly
thought provoking, and without the right mood they seem a little
trite. The thing is, this album might be a grower. It’s not
as catchy as Beck’s previous releases, nor is it as
immediately engaging. But honestly, in a couple of months after
living with the album for a while I may love it. Until then
it’s a good, not brilliant release. -Anthony Bromberg
Elvis Presley
“ELV1S”
RCA
Musicians have been ripping off the Beatles ever since the
earliest days of moptop haircuts, but Elvis? He was the one the
four Liverpudlians wanted to be, not the other way around.
Posthumously that has changed. After the success of the Beatles
“1” album the marketing geniuses that had the rights to
Elvis’ material thought, why not the King? The disc, a
collection of thirty of Elvis’ biggest hits (all in one way
or another a number one), is really quite an efficient buy. While
the Beatles’ “1” was a horrible monstrosity, this
collection works because Elvis’ music was at its purest in
the single format, whereas many Beatles songs were on classic
albums. The reasons this collection only garners three paws is
while it’s great, there are major problems. The first is as
this is an RCA release, this collection includes nothing from
Elvis’ early Sun label session recordings, where he gave many
of his most memorable vocal performances. The collection is even
missing hits like the huge Carl Perkins cover “Blue Suede
Shoes.” Another problem is that the thirty songs follow
Elvis’ career chronologically. This makes the disc quite top
heavy with Elvis’ best material and leaves the middle and end
with some forgettable tracks that were only hits because anything
Elvis did at the time was a hit. It leaves the album as no more
than a laundry list of hits. That said, since it’s Elvis, the
list is long and quite good. It probably won’t sell as much
as “1,” but it’ll introduce some new people to
the King and that’s not such a bad thing. -Anthony
Bromberg