Beck Announces 'Record Club'
Beck's last album Modern Guilt fulfilled his record deal with Interscope, and because he's far from the loser he once claimed to be, he's comfortable enough to not be in a hurry to get another one. That means he can spend the intervening time hanging around with his mates -- people like Devendra Banhart, MGMT, Jamie Lidell and producer Nigel Godrich -- and record some cover versions of classic albums. Beck's new 'Record Club' is an informal gathering of musicians who will record an album in a day, his website says, "nothing rehearsed or arranged ahead of time," and at least one song will be uploaded every week. First up is "Sunday Morning," the opening track from The Velvet Underground's seminal debut album with Nico, a video of which has been uploaded to beck.com.
Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico 'Sunday Morning' from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.
Godrich helped record this one, along with a group of lesser known collaborators, and they've even drawn a new version of the original album's sleeve to start the video. Whether these covers will ever be released for purchase is doubtful - that would require the involvement of lawyers, which seems to go against the informality of the whole plan.
There's no word yet on what other albums Beck and his pals might record, so what are your suggestions?
--Ally @ SoundUnwound
SoundUnwound's editorial team write about the latest big music news and quirky stories which catch the eye. We'll be posting a selection of these news stories on Chordstrike every week; for much, much more, visit SoundUnwound.com, the new music site from IMDb and Amazon.
Alan Wiley on June 19, 2009 at 11:04 AM
I love it! Beck is one of those artists who should have put out an album of cover songs long ago. I hope this gets released officially at some point.