Beck’s “Record Club”
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Beck Hansen is pretty excited to be free of the shackles of a major record label. Indeed, the artist known as Beck has fulfilled his contract with the release of his eighth major label studio release, last year’s solid Modern Guilt.
In fact, while his career may have lost some mainstream momentum in the 15 years since his Loser days, the reality is that the output on those albums has ranged from consistent to amazing even as he’s slowly morphed into an elder statesman for indie musicians.
Beck
And now, on the precipice of his 39th birthday and in the unique position of enjoying the creative freedom that most musicians envy, Beck has launched something called Record Club at beck.com.
I’m not exactly clear on how this works or what the plan is for his Record Club sessions, but the news hit the web today in a big way (click here for the link to Rolling Stone’s story).
Best I can figure out, he and his friends will be re-recording classic albums and then streaming the audio and video at his website. At this writing, he’s got a great version of “Sunday Morning” available on the site, apparently foreshadowing the future appearance of his cover versions of the rest of the classic, The Velvet Underground and Nico.
I’m all for this Record Club project, with its interesting insight into Beck’s pastiche of musical influences and current accomplices, and I look forward to experiencing the music in whatever form Beck chooses to deliver it.
But I hope that Beck doesn’t forget about creating some new material soon to add to his own growing legacy. Whatever Record Club offers as a way for him to purge the last vestiges of his major label experience, I certainly expect it to manifest itself into something at least as original and lasting as everything that has preceded it.
