Welcome back to er0b albums, the mid-month email that “goes long” on a single album. This month, kick it with Beck’s turn-of-the-century garden of sleaze, Midnite Vultures.
On July 8, 1999 Beck turned 29. On November 15, 1999, he released a Prince record. It’s called Midnite Vultures.
Before Midnite Vultures Beck released the somber, Nigel Godrich-produced Mutations. After Midnight Vultures, Beck released a heart-shattering breakup album called Sea Change.
And between them, there’s Midnite Vultures. An album that feels like the product of a malfunctioning, turn-of-the-century sex robot. An album that, at times, feels like a fucking joke. But the production—funk-tinged pop songs with a confident sleaze—is anything but funny.
The bombastic “Sexx Laws” sets the tone with its off-kilter kink. Midnite Vultures is interested in the nonsexual sexual—rituals of pleasure that are illogical to some, but a secret world to others. Getting bitch slapped by coquettish women, freeing yourself from handcuffs and running away with “Sports Illustrated moms.” Blending the masculine and the submissive, the effusively emotional and the absurd, “Sexx Laws” appropriately features banjo and horns. It introduces the gender fuckery that guides Midnite Vultures, plus a lyric that will return a whole album later: “I’m a full-grown man but I'm not afraid to cry.”
In their book Glitter Up The Dark, Sasha Geffen writes about Prince’s persona Camille, specifically Camille’s desire to, “participate in her girlfriend’s whole world, not just the parts deemed suitable for consumption through a male lens,” since men are often “excluded from certain rites of intimacy.” There’s a similar vibe happening on Midnite Vultures—one where Beck, or whatever character he’s playing, makes abstract bids of intimacy that transcend any prescribed notion of gender. He’ll “comb your hair, rewrite your diary.” He’ll “do your laundry, massage your soul.” He’ll “be your mistress.” He’ll be brought to his knees and “leave graffiti where you’ve never been kissed.” He aligns himself with lesbians.
Whether or not these are erotic, they’re performed as if they are—like the dripping “Nicotine & Gravy,” bass-heavy with skittery cymbal hits. Sampled hollers and record scratches culminate in the desperate falsetto: “I don’t wanna die tonight.” Beck’s falsetto range appears on the grungy “Peaches & Cream” too. Backed by bent bass and plucking guitar strings that sound like a mistake, he sings, “Don’t tell your right hand baby, what your left hand do.” Scandal. This girl can “make a garbage man scream” too, so watch out.
Hypnotic electronic breakdown “Get Real Paid” blurs Beck’s voice into others’, chanting: “We like the boys with the bulletproof vests / We like the girls with the cellophane chests.” Conjuring auditory images of the Y2K futurism, all chrome and clear-colors, “Get Real Paid” is a glitch in the system, a plea to explore something, anything, “before you die.” Meandering staccato bass and robotic beeps harmonize with the quadruple voices singing, “Touch my ass if you're qualified.”
Even the most Beck-Beck songs on Midnite Vultures are a sidelong glance ending with a wink. “Milk & Honey” contains absurd samples1 and features Johnny Marr on guitar. “Touching my body” is sung with the same gravitas and skeeze as “on my computer.” The virtual and the physical, the ideal and the realistic. Weirdly sedate “Beautiful Way” is a 70s-by-way-of-90s piano trip, but still manages to remind you of the weirdest sunset you’ve ever seen. And even “Pressure Zone” contains the ominous lyric, “Mother knows it's only a phase.” The Velvet Goldmine of it all.
Then there’s the Debra in the room: “Debra.” Like “Hollywood Freaks” early in the album,2 it’s hard to tell how much of this track is a joke. “Debra” has become somewhat of a calling card for Beck; even in his acoustic shows he’ll put down the guitar and take up the mic as the douchebag dilettante hitting on Jenny and her sister (I think her name’s Debra). Probably the closest to a direct Prince rip on the record, grandiose trumpets bellow beneath pathetic expressions of desire. It’s a song of suburban extravagance, a lowly pickup artist in JC Penney pretending he’s something of a sex god. Beck ends the recording riffing, then caveats the whole pitiful ordeal with: “I’m a full-grown man but I’m not afraid to cry.” Whether Jenny and Debra are down for that, well, that’s to be seen.
One of them, “I can smell the V.D. in the club tonight” was the original name of the record. Food for thought.