Fresh Beck

For someone who hasn’t released a new album in two years, Beck is pretty prolific. He can currently be found on four different songs #nowplaying on 22tracks, and that’s not even everything he’s got going on right now. It’s kind of been like that since his debut in 1993 and the amazing thing is that so much of his immense output is so great. Alright, I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a fan.

There’s two new Beck songs on the rock playlist. “Bad Blood” is taken from the second soundtrack of the US television series True Blood, which I haven’t seen. Judging by the album sleeve it has something to do with vampires. Or it could be werewolves (maybe both), as Beck is howling like one in “Bad Blood”, a scuzzy blues-rocker.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1FGBheLutA

It is followed directly in the playlist by “Fresh Hex”, a song on Tobacco‘s new album Maniac Meat. It’s one of two songs by the Black Moth Super Rainbow frontman featuring Beck, and this one has him freestyling with words starting with a K sound. If you can make sense of lines like “Cowboy kaleidoscope / Like a concrete cactus cracking in a colosseum” you’re smarter (or crazier) than me.

Another soundtrack contribution is “Let’s Get Lost”, over on the pop playlist. It’s a duet with UK singer Natasha Khan AKA Bat For Lashes. Like “Bad Blood”, this song was written with especially for the visual story, in this case the movie The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Again, I haven’t seen it (nor the previous two Twilight Saga films) and again, it’s all about vampires. And romance. There’s no video (yet) for this song but should it get made, I expect it to feature his ‘n’ hers fangs.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZxJzhIPTTg

The third Beck song on 22tracks isn’t really one, it’s Jamie Lidell‘s “I Wanna Be Your Telephone” (funk/jazz), which has Beck getting his groove on and playing guitar on it. I blogged about Jamie Lidell a few weeks ago, in case you missed that.

What else is there? There’s a beautiful new video for the Beck-written and produced Charlotte Gainsbourg single “Time of the Assassins”. And then there’s Beck’s Record Club, which sees him covering entire albums with a rotating line-up of musician-friends. It’s currently up to album number four, Kick by InXs (1987). You’ll remember “Never Tear Us Apart”, which is here sung by St. Vincent:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rOjkSho0A