20 Watts

Beck's Record Club Project is uninspiring thus far

Last month, Beck announced on his Web site that he would be starting a new Internet project. The collaborative project, entitled The Record Club, planned to pair artists such as MGMT and Devendra Banhart to re-record classic albums in one day without practicing beforehand. Once the Web site was ready, The Record Club would release one track a week beginning with The Velvet Underground & Nico album. Cool plan, right?

Not so much. The idea is interesting in theory, but it doesn’t really work in practice. The Record Club is already four tracks into the Underground album — you can see some cuts on Vimeo — and so far, it’s just uninspiring.

To quote Juno MacGuff: “It’s just noise.”

The point of re-recording a song is to add something, or make it better than the original. That’s not happening and on top of that, the production quality is very low. The music sounds choppy and it’s hard to understand what’s going on.

Then again Beck is known for his revolutionary approach to music. Perhaps his intent in covering these albums will become apparent with more listening — and Beck does know how to cover a song. It will be interesting to see which album he chooses next.

—Ashley Collman