Beck - Deadweight - Non-Album Tracks (1998)

Generally, I'm not as fond of musicians who got their start in the 1990s or later as I am fond of earlier artists. (That said, I could be missing a lot, and I always appreciate strong recommendations.) However, one very big exception for me is Beck. I think he's one of the all-time greats.

Unfortunately, like some of the greats, such as Dylan, Hendrix, Springsteen, and Neil Young, Beck has a habit of leaving all sorts of good songs off his albums. At least in case of the other four I just mentioned there have been plenty of archival releases over the years. But with Beck, there basically have been none so far (with a deluxe edition of Odelay a very rare exception). So I hope to feature a lot of Beck albums here to help make up for the way he's let so many songs slip into obscurity. (And that's considering what's become publicly available - apparently he's written many more songs that haven't even been bootlegged.)

For all his major 1990s albums, one can make another album of all the best songs he didn't put on the album around that time. And that's exactly what I've done. :) Mutations is my favorite album by him, so here's my version of what should be his other Mutations era album.

All the songs were released in some form or another, usually as B-sides, except for the last one, "Maria Bethania." That's a live duet between Beck and Brazilian star Caetano Veloso, from a bootleg. I figure that fits in with the MPB / tropicalia Brazilian feeling that clearly was influencing Beck at the time.

Normally, on my stray tracks albums such a this one, I try hard to avoid duplicating any songs released on any well-known official albums from that era. I've made a partial exception here. You may recognize that "Strange Invitation" is fundamentally the same song as the hit "Jack-Ass" from the previous album Odelay, but it's done in such a different style that Beck gave it a different name.

I chose "Deadweight" as the name of this album in part so I could use the cover of the Deadweight single for the album cover. The album is 44 minutes long, which is four minutes shorter than Mutations.

01 Deadweight (Beck)
02 SA-5 (Beck)
03 Erase the Sun (Beck)
04 Strange Invitation [Jack-Ass] (Beck)
05 Black Balloon (Beck)
06 Halo of Gold [Furry Heroine] (Beck)
07 Runners Dial Zero (Beck)
08 Diamond in the Sleaze (Beck)
09 One of These Days (Beck)
10 Electric Music and the Summer People (Beck)
11 Maria Bethania [Live] (Beck & Caetano Veloso)
12 Devil Got My Woman (Beck)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15125869/BeckH_1998b-1999_Dedweight_atse.zip.html

The cover art is the cover from the "Deadweight" single.