“Allegretto Per Signora” is a short Ennio Morricone jam that his band would play to intro a number of shows on the Odelay tours.

I was not expecting a huge response for this song, but was pleasantly surprised. As a live song from the mid-90s, it must have triggered a lot of good nostalgia for the classic Beck years.

Newt:

Morricone is amazing. I love this track, I’m so happy Beck’s band started playing it. It’s so fucking rad. It reminds me of fantastic, crazy European films from the 60s and 70s. Here are some fantastic, crazy European films from the 60s and 70s that I love:

– Danger: Diabolik
– Zabriskie Point

Check this: http://www.youtube.com/user/FunkySoundtracks

Bebo:

All I can say about this tune is. AMAZING. I just listened to the original, and I have to say that Beck and Band (I guess it’s really the band for this) really stay true to it. Few notable changes/additions that really make this tune a live gem: (1) the brass menagerie (If there was someway I could reunite these guys with Beck, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Who’s with me?) adds some jazzy fun to the funky tune, (2) Smokey on guitar and announcing Beck’s return in his smokey sounding voice (I’m drooling right now as I listen to this), (3)the more upbeat/fastpace of Beck and Crew’s rendition. Totally a great pick for a little intermission while Beck I am sure went to “refresh” himself. Would love to hear this song played again some day.

Vitamin.Deb:

How lovely for me to be rejoining the oeuvre festivities with this treasure, after a travel-and-illness-induced hiatus. I know many of the frx have already heard all or parts of this tale, but this is a good place for me to record it for posterity…

Odelay came out the week that I graduated from UC Davis in June 1996, and the summer that followed was one of the worst of my life for various reasons that I won’t bore y’all or myself again with. I bought the CD when it came out, but never listened to it much until the fall, when – again for various reasons – things really began to look up for me. I’d moved away from Davis after graduating, but I was moving back for a good job. I remember listening to the CD on repeat in my friend Nathan’s truck while he was helping me with the move. I made some good friends at the new job and was starting to feel human again. 1997 arrived and I heard Beck was gonna be comin’ to town on Feb. 13.. I kinda flipped out; I think Odelay had really become tied up in my mind as an integral part of my recovery from the previous year’s despair, and I knew I had to go to that show. I remember walking with Nathan down G Street in Davis to Tower Records to buy two tickets. He wasn’t going to be able to go though, and I remember telling him that I’d met this cute guy at work and I was thinking of inviting him to go. I did, he accepted, and all these years later he’s my baby’s daddy. (Haha, it’s still a little strange for me that I can legitimately use that expression.)

I’ve got lots of vivid memories from the show, all of which were intangible for a very long time until I discovered the hub a few years ago. When I realized that there was actually a recording of it, I kinda flipped out. Again. That bootleg, super-crappy audio notwithstanding, is my most treasured hub download. Bringing us to the tune at hand, “Allegretto Per Signora” (or TV in the Kitchen, as it’s called on this particular recording). Being able to relive that charge of excitement and energy, triggered by DJ Swamp’s Are You Ready? and then built into a funky frenzy by this one… it’s just, it’s so linked to so much joy for me that it makes me bust way more than a little.

ARE YOU READY TO ROCK THIS SHIT TONIGHT??!?!?!?

Always, Beck. I can funk legit.

Cato:

So, I believe this is the first time I have heard this song. I may have heard it years ago, but I can’t remember.

In listening to this song, I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard it before as this was not anything like what I was expecting. I was expecting something a bit more mellow, closer to something that would be found on Mutations, but I was pleasantly surprised. It is also shorter than I expected, but is fabulous none the less. When the song initially started it seemed as if it were not going to have lyrics, but then, suddenly there is this incredible introduction to beck. I love how the crowd goes crazy, it makes me want to be there… I’m only over 10 years too late, and at that time, I don’t think my mother would have let me go to Santa Cruz, and she sure as hell wouldn’t go with me.

Looking at the date of this reminded me that that was around the time I started getting into beck. I was 14 and all the other girls my age were into the Backstreet Boys, and N*SYNC. They thought I was weird. They probably would still think that I am weird. But I probably have maintained a better taste in music. I am sure of this.

:) This is a fun song, and I have to share…here it is. Though to be honest, I have no idea what show this particular recording is from–it’s the only mp3 of it I had on my computer, and it was unlabelled. I believe it to be this show, but don’t have my CD of it handy to compare. Anyway, enjoy.

Next up, “Already Dead”!

Not a Beck song, this is Beck’s remix of Bjork’s “Alarm Call” from her album Homogenic.

The only other relation I can think of between the two is this photoshoot from which I’ve included a couple of photos. I can’t recall if there was an actual dual interview or not.

As for the track itself:

AlmostAGhost:

I’ll be honest. I have this CD single, but not only do I have no idea where it is, I probably haven’t listened to it since I bought it whenever it came out (and I don’t even remember when that was exactly–I think I was living in Boston at the time, so maybe 2001 or so?). So I haven’t quite lived with this song like I have most the other Beck ones we discuss. I vaguely remember some sound effects that Beck used, but fear I’m mixing that up with a different Beck remix. Could I be more useless here today? I’ll make up for that in the next paragraph.

I did, however, just *ahem* obtain *ahem* a copy of the track and am about to listen to it right now! Enthralling, I know! The track starts out spacey, like the theme to Star Trek. Now Bjork is singing “this is enlightenment” and Beck puts some electronica and some piano behind her. Beck talks nowadays (for Modern Guilt) about keeping his songs simple, cutting out the extra chaff, getting to the core of a song. This remix is nothing like that. The beats are still going, and I am getting used to them and their clutter by now, but I can’t say I love it. There does not feel like there was any sort of cohesive idea behind what Beck was doing, and neither was it done in a cool “throw in the kitchen sink”-Odelay-collage way. I guess it falls somewhere in between those two. Now Bjork is singing about a mountaintop as Beck drops some Spanish guitar flamenco-style on there, whoa where’d that come from? I’m no fucking Buddhist, but this is enlightenment!

Oh yea, turns out those effects I was thinking of in the earlier paragraph are from a different remix–but I have no idea which one.

Newt:

Homogenic is not my favourite Björk album (though it’s a close second behind Post) and ‘Alarm Call’ is not my favourite track on Homogenic. Similarly, I don’t tend to love Beck’s remixes and the ‘Bjeck Mix’ is not my favourite remix that he has done. What I’m trying to say is this: ‘Alarm Call (Bjeck Mix)’ is a steaming pile of mediocrity. I don’t actively dislike anything about it, but I definitely don’t find much to like about it either.

Actually, scratch that. Here’s what I like about it:

• The name: “Bjeck” is a fun blend, and came years before Brangelina and Bennifer and all those things.
• The latin themed last 45 seconds or so. Fun!

That’s it! Didn’t Beck and Björk fight it out in Celebrity Deathmatch?

Here’s a shitty picture I drew:

Björk’s whole face is really screwed up there, as is her whole body, but I really didn’t feel like redrawing it.