Word: songe
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Steve's next band was equally impolitic; he named it Rapeman. Rapeman was quieter than Big Black, but this is relative. It had a human drummer, for one thing. Rapeman had only one album; it was named Two Nuns and a Pack Mule. The best song builds slowly from a single guitar and frequent silences; then it adds a bass line, then some white noise and then Steve's voice. The song is hypnotic, even lovely, but in typical Albini fashion, this song is called "Kim Gordon's Panties" and features classy lyrics like "If I had that to come...
...Steve's latest band is Shellac. He playsguitar and sings, Bob Weston plays bass, and ToddTrainer drums. Their sound is sparser, funkier,still aggressive and loud, but significantly morerepetitive, less interesting and lessground-breaking than Big Black. My roommate heard"My Black Ass," the first song on their '94 LPAt Action Park, and asked, "Is this RageAgainst the Machine?" (It only took me a week orso to speak to him again.) Steve has announcedthat all Shellac songs are about either Canada orbaseball. Steve is now 36, and his indiecredibility is fading fast...
...Steve-o himself, "apatchwork pinch loaf from a band who at their topdollar best are blandly entertaining collegerock." This really angers up the blood. SurferRosa is one of the best rock albums ever. ThePixies are one of the best rock bands ever. On theother hand, Steve recorded a song called "nuttyabout lemurs." This counts for a lot, in my book...
...himself rather than delivering another jolt of noise for the twenty-first century. The album is awfully pleasant, even affecting, with the rich twang of slideguitars, the whine of a harmonica and theoccasional exotic instrument imported to shakethings up a little. Beck is nearly as playful asever, but no song on Mutations has theremarkable freshness of Odelay. When a songmakes a musical allusion--like the sitar melody onthe desolate "Nobody's Fault But My Own," whichechoes the Door's "The End"--it comes out soundingless like a tribute than an affectation. Even onthe album's best tracks, like the outstanding...
Certainly, Mutations will not disappointany Odelay fan. Joyful juxtapositions arestrewn throughout the album: harmonicas andharpsichords, slide guitars and synthesizers,rural blues and robotic buzzes. The musicalcanvas, as on Odelay, is rich and broad.Yet, the mellowness of the album dampens theclimate of carefree experimentation struggling toemerge. Even the song titles--"Static," "LazyFlies," "Dead Melodies"--indicate the vibe ofdeflated indolence that restrains the album fromexploding with fresh ideas. Lyrics onMutations exchange the trenchant absurdistinsights of Odelay for a strained maturityand faux wisdom, as when Beck writes, "Doldrumsare pounding/Cheapskates are clowning this town."The belabored cuteness of the imagery and Beck'sstilted delivery...