SOUNDTRACK: BECK-Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010).
I somehow missed Beck’s next album, Modern Guilt. Whether I was bummed about not loving The Information or that Iwas just out of the loop, I’m surprised I wasn’t all over this collaboration with Danger Mouse. But I plan to give it a closer listen soon.
After that, Beck wrote several songs for Sex Bob-Omb, the band in the movie Scott Pilgrim vs the World.
In a confusing annotation, he wrote 4 songs that Sex Bob-Omb play on the soundtrack. Three of those songs, Beck also performs on the deluxe version of the album. Beck also recorded two versions of a song that he wrote for the soundtrack. And, according to Spin, there are four more unreleased tracks that you can listen to on their site.
I’m only going to mention the officially released tracks here.
“We Are Sex Bob-Omb” is a great punky fuzzed out rock song (as all four turn out to be). It has a very Stooges feel and at only 2 minutes (including the intro) it’s quite the punk anthem. Beck doesn’t do a version of this one.
“Threshold” is a punk blast (less than 2 minutes). Beck’s version is fuzzed out with all kinds of interesting noises swirling around. The chorus is very traditional punk (ie. surprisingly catchy). The Sex Bob-Omb version is very close to the original. It’s actually a little cleaner (you can understand most of the lyrics), but I think all of the noises are the same, so maybe its the same music with different vocals? Well, according to the movie Wiki, the actors played the music, but of the three it’s the closest musically to the original. There’s also an 8-bit version of the song which sounds like a warped video game playing along to the melody. It’s created by Brian LeBarton.
“Garbage Truck” is a big dumb slow track. In Beck’s version, there’s more fuzzed out guitars and it sounds more 70s rock than punk. There’s big drums and dumb lyrics. It’s great. The Sex Bob-Omb version sounds quite different in the recording. It’s a wee bit slower, and once again the vocals are much cleaner, but the music is wonderfully fuzzed out again.
“Summertime” is the same style of song–fuzzy and simple (Beck must have had fun writing these). This one is the longest of the songs, at just over 2 minutes. Beck’s voice is once again super distorted. The Sex Bob-Omb version feels slower, but maybe that’s just because the vocals are so much cleaner.
Although I thought I’d enjoy the Sex Bob-Omb versions more, I side with the Beck versions on all of them. None of the songs are great, but they’re not supposed to be (Sex Bob-Omb isn’t meant to be a great band). But they are a lot of fun, especially if you like garage punk.
There are two versions of “Ramona” on the disc. The acoustic one is just a minute long and is Beck strumming and singing the word “Ramona” a few times. It sets the stage for the full version which has strings and actual lyrics. It’s a pretty song, reminiscent of the string style of Sea Change.
So this is an interesting collection of songs for Beck fans. And, in fact, the entire soundtrack is quite good.
[READ: March 16, 2014] When Did You Last See Her?
I enjoyed Book 2 in this series a lot more than I remember enjoying Book 1. And it was great to get back into the fun writing style of Lemony Snicket novels.
The first book left us with the quest for the Bombinating Beast sculpture which, as the story ended, was taken by Ellington Feint, a girl who Snicket was just starting to like. The first book was full of (intentionally) confusing writing in which Snicket knows that the things he did were wrong, and things like the true nature of what happened were written in a weird way.
There was some of that in this book, but the focus was more on the story than the weirdness of Snicket’s situation (which I’m still not entirely clear on). Without dwelling on book 1 too much, suffice it to say that Lemony Snicket is an apprentice to the terrible mentor S. Theodora (we still don’t know what the S. stands for). We also don’t even exactly know what they do, in other words what his he apprentice-ing in? He claims it’s not detective work.
Despite the disappointment of losing the Beast statue, there is a new problem in Stain’d by the Sea, which Snicket and S. have not left yet. It turns out a girl, heir to the Knight fortune, has gone missing. Cleo Knight, budding chemist, and girl with a plan to save the dying town of Stain’d by the Sea was last seen leaving town in her indestructible car, the famous Dilemma. And yet, she was also seen (by the proprietor of Partial Foods (ha!)) leaving in a taxicab. When Snicket and S. Theodora investigate the house, they find that the Knight parents are being sedated by a Dr. Flammarion–who seems very suspicious.
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 5: Sonic Youth Featuring Kim Gordon/DJ Olive/Ikue Mori (2000).
The fifth SYR disc is rather different from the others in that the only SY member is Kim. This is a sort of side project for Kim, 
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Silver Session for Jason Knuth (1998).
This record came about for two reasons. One was the suicide of longtime Sonic Youth fan (whom the band didn’t know) Jason Knuth. And the second was because when they tried to record vocal tracks for One Thousand Leaves, the band upstairs was so loud, it kept interfering with their recording.
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 3: Invito Al Ĉielo (1998).
This SYR release adds Jim O’Rourke to the mix (O’Rourke played with with them on A Thousand Leaves too). I’ve always been aware of O’Rourke but I’ve never really listened to any of the bands that he’s been associated with (and there’s a lot). So, I’m not sure what his actual contributions are, but he seems to be pushing the SY members into a much more noisy/abstract direction. (A few samples of Gastr Del Sol shows them to be pretty out there, so perhaps pushing SY in a direction that was not too far from where they’d go on their own. And, I rather liked the Gastr stuff, too).
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH -SYR 1 Anagrama (1997).
I Just Read About That... 