Wednesday, February 13, 2008

we dig: Odelay Deluxe

"Hook me up with the mad phat beats"

Featuring 19 b-sides, remixes, and previously unreleased songs (plus an essay by Thurston Moore), the Deluxe Edition of Odelay is a treasure trove of the upbeat, kaleidoscopic sound that cemented Beck's reputation as a capital-A Artist. And while the music stands up to the test of time and then some, it is hard to deny that a lot of Odelay's appeal lies in the album's legendary cover art, which has been updated with doodles for the Deluxe pressing. Says Beck:
"The cover of the album was found in a book of dogs. It is in fact a dog, and it's a ridiculous dog, and you look at it and you ponder the... absurdity... the comedy... but the tragic comedy of this splenderous dog leaping over a hurdle and why such a dog is being made to leap over a hurdle. And you think to yourself, you know, all the splenderous dogs within ourselves, why we are made each day to leap over this hurdle that life constantly places before us."
While you let those words of wisdom sink in, stream "Diskobox", an Odelay-era rarity that was previously released, but for whatever reason did not make it on to the Deluxe Edition.

1 comment:

McG said...

For those interested, the dog on the cover of Odelay is a Komondor, a Hungarian sheep dog whose fur is not fur, but cords more like dreadlocks. It's also the only dog I've ever wanted.