Tag Archives: Guero

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Song of the Day #6,145: ‘Black Tambourine’ – Beck

David Lynch’s final feature film was his most confounding.

After winning praise for delivering a conventional story in The Straight Story and earning the best reviews of his career with the sublime Mulholland Drive, he returned in 2006 with Inland Empire, a strange and unsettling experimental film.

This is a three-hour movie with no discernible plot. It was shot on standard definition video using a camera Lynch operated himself. He also handled editing duties and composed most of the music. It fulfilled his desire to strip filmmaking down to the basics and make a film in a way anybody with a camera and some willing actors could.

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Song of the Day #5,910: ‘Broken Drum’ – Beck

I can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that 2005 is nearly 20 years ago. That was the first thought I had when I started prepping for my latest installment of the Decades series, wherein I look back on my own favorite albums from a particular year as well as highly-regarded albums I missed at the time.

When I make it into the 2000s, as I will the next few weeks with 2005, I start to think in terms of recent releases. But 19 years ago isn’t all that recent. My life was so different when I listened to these albums for the first time, yet it seems like hardly any time has passed.

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Song of the Day #5,091: ‘Go It Alone’ – Beck

The Random iTunes Fairy is at it again, giving us a Beck twofer this weekend. Today’s track is a deep cut from the 2005 album Guero, Beck’s best-selling release in the 26 years since the multi-platinum Odelay.

Guero reunited Beck with producers The Dust Brothers, who worked on Odelay, and the album has a similar alt-hip-hop vibe. Today’s track features Jack White on bass, and was co-written with White and the Dust Brothers.

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Song of the Day #4,915: ‘Rental Car’ – Beck

‘Rental Car’ is the penultimate track on Beck’s 2005 album Guero, a critical and commercial hit that continued a streak of stellar releases dating back to Mellow Gold in 1994.

That 11-year span saw the release of seven albums swinging between the kaleidoscopic alt-rock buzzsaw Odelay and the melancholy sobfest Sea Change. Guero falls a lot closer to the Odelay side, in large part because Beck reunited with the producing team The Dust Brothers.

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Song of the Day #3,245: ‘Hell Yes’ – Beck vs. John Mayer

Our next Montauk Madness matchup pits somebody it’s very cool to like against somebody it’s very uncool to like. Beck, meet John Mayer.

I’m a big fan of both of these guys, so I’ll try to keep the hipness factor out of my vote. I realize that appreciating John Mayer is not great for my street cred, but I think anybody who dismisses his musical chops or his songwriting ability is mistaken. Sure, the guy can be a smug prick and some of his songs veer too close to maudlin, but so many more are spot-on.

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