From its kaleidoscopic array of junk-culture musical styles to its assured, surrealistic wordplay, Beck's debut album, Mellow Gold, is a stunner. Throughout the record, Beck plays as if there are no divisions between musical genres, freely blending rock, rap, folk, psychedelia, and country. Although his inspired sense of humor occasionally plays like he's a smirking, irony-addled hipster, his music is never kitschy, and his wordplay is constantly inspired. Since Mellow Gold was pieced together from home-recorded tapes, it lacks a coherent production, functioning more as a stylistic sampler: there are the stoner raps of "Loser" and "Beercan," the urban folk of "Pay No Mind (Snoozer)," the mock-industrial onslaught of "Mutherfuker," the garagey "Fuckin' With My Head (Mountain Dew Rock)," the trancy acoustic "Blackhole," and the gently sardonic folk-rock of "Nitemare Hippy Girl."
Both the title single and the album rose to the top of their respective U.S. charts (the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts and the Billboard 200 albums charts). The title song and its follow-up, "Please Mr. Please," were both top 10 on three Billboard charts: the Hot 100, Adult Contemporary, and Country. Newton-John received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her work on the song "Have You Never Been Mellow," but lost to "At Seventeen" by Janis Ian{ wikipedia }
From its kaleidoscopic array of junk-culture musical styles to its assured, surrealistic wordplay, Beck's debut album, Mellow Gold, is a stunner. Throughout the record, Beck plays as if there are no divisions between musical genres, freely blending rock, rap, folk, psychedelia, and country. Although his inspired sense of humor occasionally plays like he's a smirking, irony-addled hipster, his music is never kitschy, and his wordplay is constantly inspired. Since Mellow Gold was pieced together from home-recorded tapes, it lacks a coherent production, functioning more as a stylistic sampler: there are the stoner raps of "Loser" and "Beercan," the urban folk of "Pay No Mind (Snoozer)," the mock-industrial onslaught of "Mutherfuker," the garagey "Fuckin' With My Head (Mountain Dew Rock)," the trancy acoustic "Blackhole," and the gently sardonic folk-rock of "Nitemare Hippy Girl."
Not All Mellow, Houston Person's tribute to the softer side of jazz has its moments based on the laid-back timbre of his soul rather than a program consisting of only ballads. The tenor sax he wields certainly reflects the tradition established by Ben Webster in its soul-drenched tone, but is not as vocally pronounced or vibrato-driven. The quite capable pianist John Di Martino is the one whose more enunciated notions are harnessed, while tasteful guitar by the underrated James Chirillo rings out in acceptance of Person's embraceable hues. In a program of standards and two blues jams, Person rounds into shape this quintet of true professionals to render themes that are harder to play slow than fast…
Its impressive recording debut Four Odd is now followed by Mellow which features ten arrangements by Ivanusic on six of his originals, three standards and the Macedonian traditional piece “U Krusevo ogin gori”….
Keigo Oyamada (小山田 圭吾, Oyamada Keigo, born January 27, 1969), also known by his moniker Cornelius (CORNELIUS(コーネリアス), Kōneriasu), is a Japanese musician and producer who co-founded Flipper's Guitar, an influential Shibuya-kei band, and subsequently embarked on a solo career…