Beck strokes The Velvet Underground

Friday, August 21st, 2009

I’m not writing a series of blog posts entitled “the best thing I stumbled across on the web this week”, but if I was, Beck’s Record Club, would be number four in the series.

As baffling as that opening paragraph may initially seem, it’s a mere tickle of oddness next to the backhanded slap that is Beck covering The Velvet Underground and posting the recordings on his website. They’re part of a larger experiment in which the restless musical waif works with a rotating group of musicians to “reinterpret” classic albums – beginning with The Velvet Underground and Nico. There’s two more planned for the series and if this is anything to go by, they’ll be notable for their kamikaze-like courage and utter failure.

JUDGED! But not really, because Beck has failed at an impossible task – he was trying to erect a monument of mist – which makes the fact he tried in the first place all the more impressive. At the core of this problem is the fact that Lou Reed (lead singer of the Velvet Underground) lived the sort of life that made angels fall from the sky in envy and dread.

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