The Black Angel's Death Song - Beck

Velvet Underground cover

Bass: Bram Inscore
Guitar (Acoustic): Beck Hansen
Original Performance: The Velvet Underground
Vocals: Beck Hansen
Written by: John Cale, Lou Reed

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• beck
• hansen
• Record
• Club
• Velvet
• Underground
• Nico
• the
• black
• angel's
• death
• song

[taryndactylable]

He didn't kill any energy, he created a new vibe for the song. It's called reinventing, and Beck did a fabulous job doing so on this one. Johnny Cash's songs and covers all sound the same, and no one criticizes him because of his name. People need to stop being persuaded by all of this elitist bullshit.

[beckmangroup]

Exactly. If I wanted to hear the song covered in the exact same way that it was played, I would just listen to the original.

[bodsnvimto]

I love the original but find this an interesting version. I've read all the comments, & would like to add one extra spin - IMO this version is a drawl & a slide guitar away from being almost quintessential Country & Western.

[JaackPat]

@Tsugaheterophylla Which is disappointing. If you take away the viola and add the appropriate guitar chords to correlate with the vocals, then it would be just another folk song (which isn't as interesting and pretty much what Beck did).

[Tsugaheterophylla]

@JaackPat Lou Reed was a regular old folk singer; give a listen to the "All Tomorrow's Parties" demos from the Peel Slowly and See box set. Also the "Prominent Men" demo is a blatant Bob Dylan rip-off. This song is heavily Dylanesque too. So you're right, really; if you strip off the distortion and feedback, this is what you find underneath.

[lordlie]

@Misli10 Damn straight!

[JaackPat]

Eh... he just turned it into a regular old folk song. Sounds fun, but he could've given it that avant-garde feel that he gave his cover of "Venus in Furs." Plus, half of the original's songs significance comes from the symbolism that comes from Cale's viola. I'll hand it to him, though, it takes a lot of guts to cover such a legendary album.

[Misli10]

I love it!! Beck really is the coolest person on earth! Man, I love this!!

[2bsom1]

this is as good as gets for a vu cover

[2bsom1]

@sekhmetraptah far out man

[sekhmetraptah]

@beckmangroup ...nice cover of the 60's slant anti-communist ditty about old russia, the ghost bloodied country; and the homage to g.t. miasnikov, the bolshevist that defied lenin

[Beck436]

I grinned at the fact that he put The Information stickers on the same part of his acoustic guitar as where I put mine.