Word: kraftwerk
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Which brings up the interesting question of influential groups. Not many people own an album by the Fall, yet so many bands cite them as an influence. The same thing probably applies to Sonic Youth and Kraftwerk (although both are probably more popular than the Fall), and to even more obscure bands like 23 Skidoo. Would you rather be best-selling or influential? Answers...
...magic word. Beck, beck bananna-nanna pho pheck; Beck. The Pied Piper of post-grunge white boys everywhere, Beck Hansen leads us away from the dying city of Rock playing a tune of satire and pastiche. On Midnite Vultures, he eviscerates hip-hop, R&B and even Kraftwerk of their souls, piling the resultant carrion into a tower of intoxicating formal juxtaposition, and finally infuses these styles with his own pink-pants voice. Who would need anything more...
...shop at Old Navy. He knows all about this, and he isn't afraid to mimic it. And he hopes all the "Hollywood freaks," "b-boys," girls who "look so Israeli" and whom he saw "at JC Penney" are as cool as he is. All the same, the Kraftwerk-esque Beck who chants "We like the girls/With the cellophane chests" has made a definite turn from grungy regurgitation to playful appropriation, and if it makes Midnite Vultures better than any of his previous albums, it also makes it less personable...
...especially King Tubby, that kind of stuff. The Clash, of course. And then I kind of took a step back from what I think of as guitar-based music, when hip-hop started to kick off and got into that and then techno and a lot of electronic music. Kraftwerk were massive influences. I got into Detroit techno, especially early Detroit techno, Chicago house, and then I think it got a bit lame, it got a bit boring, and it got a bit obvious, and that's when I started going back to guitar-based stuff and Jesus and Mary...
...full album, however, moves away from the through-the-roof lager madness of Dig Your Own Hole to a more house-based sound, one that's perhaps less accessible than their earlier rocktinged efforts. In a way, it's a roots album for the Chemicals, recalling the influences of Kraftwerk and early-'80s electro (most evident in the title track) and showcasing a definite European sound...