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Fan says muchas gracias to ‘Odelay’ deluxe edition

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By Chris Dorsey
Tuesday, February 5, 2008 11:24 p.m.

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Reissues, re-releases, expanded editions, deluxe editions, super ultra mega bonus editions — or whatever you want to call them — can be a crapshoot. Often they are the result of a record label looking to make a quick buck off a proven artist, and usually they offer no convincing reason for the average fan to go out of their way to purchase it (hello, Pink Floyd 16-disc box set).

But in steps Odelay - Deluxe Edition to provide a pretty persuasive argument for you to do the hipster shuffle down to your local music store. It’s crammed with almost an hour-and-a-half of added material that includes remixes, soundtrack cuts and a surplus of rare and unreleased B-sides.

It’s already been nearly a dozen years since Beck dazzled the music world with his genre-spanning opus, and when the idea for a reissue was birthed, there was probably a celestial finger-waving somewhere in the sky, warning the foolish not to tamper with perfection. Yet Deluxe manages to breathe new life into what’s essentially become a modern classic.

Three tracks are tacked on to the original album —“Deadweight,” from the A Life Less Ordinary soundtrack, “Inferno” and “Gold Chains” — which were pulled straight from the original Odelay sessions. The songs blend seamlessly with the album’s retro-tinged, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach.

Deluxe also provides a proper tour through the entire Beck Manual of Style, and part of what makes this record so damn fun is just clicking from one song to the next, attempting to guess what’s around the corner.

On Disc Numero Dos, electro-artist Aphex Twin contributes a predictably glitchy version of “Devil’s Haircut,” dubbed “Richard’s Hairpiece,” and UKer Mickey P. sprints in the opposite direction with the same song on “American Wasteland,” a punked-out rocker with a driving bass line straight out of the Dead Kennedys’ discography.

A decidedly lo-fi noisiness dominates much of the album and highlights Beck’s typical off-the-cuff approach to a variety of genres. The morphine-induced “.000.000” sounds like a tape stolen from an early Melvins recording session, and a stellar, stripped down cover of Skip James’ “Devil Got My Woman” show that Beck’s talents go far beyond the cut-and-paste, dance party attitude of much of his work over the last decade.

Other highlights of Deluxe include a spacious, 12-minute UNKLE remix of “Where It’s At,” propelled by James Lavelle’s addictive drum beats, and the sultry, swaggering “Clock” — a previously released B-side that might provoke an instant desire to break it down with your nearest neighbor — so be careful when and where you play this.

Two alternate takes on “Jack-Ass” close out the disc, with “Strange Invitation” adding lush orchestral flavors to the track and “Burro” ending things with a lighthearted but straight-faced mariachi version of the song, voiced entirely in Spanish. “Strange Invitation,” it seems, might be the one track on Deluxe that proves superior to its original version.

Everything on Deluxe combines to create a commendable epilogue to one of the best musical works in the last decade-and-a-half, so don’t let the $27.99 list price scare you away. After 2006’s nap-inducing The Information, Beck has reignited his catalog with a tasty collection of treats that should satisfy casual and diehard fans alike. It also goes to show that an artist of Beck’s caliber maintains the ability to churn out B-sides that continually trump most bands’ A-sides.

4 1/2 stars out of 5


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