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Beck - Blink-182 By Mean Street Staff BECK One hit wonder. Novelty act. Loser. These are just some of the things we called Beck Hansen the first time we heard his major label debut, Mellow Gold, back in 1994. And we actually liked him. Back then nobody expected the slacker poster-boy to stick around too long. It just doesn't happen when you put donkeys in your first video of performing live wearing a Darth Vader mask and pretend to breakdance. Even he seemed to know he was off to a rocky start. "I always thought it was silly, all the hoopla over Mellow Gold," Beck told us a few years later. "To me it wasn't even a record. It was just a bunch of sketches. There are some good songs in there but they're really skeletons. They're not fully realized pictures." But over the years, he kept surprising, entertaining and making us laugh - which is really all you can ask from your favorite musician. We watched him go massive with the finely tuned pop songs on 1996's Odelay, mixing up a dizzying cocktail of hip-hop, folk and funk on songs like "Where It's At" and "Devil's Haircut" - songs that even we got sick of hearing after the billionth time they were on the radio. It wasn't until a little bit later, however, that we really got Beck - in the way that you meet someone at a party, stare into each other's eyes, talk about any old nonsense and think they're going to be your best friend forever. That came with the release of 2002's Sea Change, an album released after Beck - once the most private man in rock - broke up with his long-term girlfriend, split from his management company, poked Winona Ryder, allegedly embraced Scientology and dumped the samplers. "I choose to let it all out and don't make any excuses," he told us. That's when he finally earned the label we had been withholding all these years: Human. (AIDIN VAZIRI) ***** BLINK-182 If there's a poster child vacancy for the old adage "you've gotta spend money to make money," please let Blink-182 grace the space, replete in Calvin Klein-mocked underpants. "We started paying people to like us," claims guitarist Tom DeLonge in March 1995's Mean Street. "It costs about four bucks per person," bassist Mark Hoppus added. OK, so it's all in jest - hell, everything about the band was - but the original trio of San Diegans (Hoppus, DeLonge and original drummer Scott Raynor) certainly put their money where their mouths - plus asses, dicks and tattoos - were, a few blinding years later. Although the act had a demo cassette and the rough-hewn Buddha disc already under their belts, 1994's Cheshire Cat (originally released on San Diego-based indie Cargo/Grilled Cheese) was the career-launcher Blink-182 needed. Granted, the sonics and performance left much to be desired (and were, eventually, vastly improved upon), but the act's potty-mouthed prose and double-timed ditties sliced through the low-budget affair, serving as the perfect underground follow-up to Green Day's successful groundbreaker Dookie, which had hit store shelves (and the charts) the same year. After a few years of slugging it out on the road, the 182s had moved to major label MCA, released the successful Dude Ranch disc, earned their first (of three) Mean Street covers and swapped Raynor for the now-infamous Travis Barker. With the increased success came the additional opportunity, and Blink-182 seized every chance, whether it was performing in the buff at massive events or filming videos with porn actresses. Plus, every garage band wanted - and did their damndest - to be the next Blink-182, thusly flooding the Mean Street offices with half-assed copycat discs ad naseum. Both 1999's Enema Of The State and 2001's Take Off Your Pants and Jacket were multi-platinum sales smashes. Millions of albums later, "four bucks per person" doesn't seem to be all that bad of an investment. (WALEED RASHIDI) |
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Copyright © 2002 Mean Street Magazine, LLC |
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