Beck Covers Leonard Cohen With Devendra, MGMT

Beck continues making good use of his down time between album cycles with the second phase of his Record Club, the project which sees Hansen invite a tag-archive-friendly set of friends to cover a classic album in its entirety, in a day, with no rehearsal. He recently finished posting clips from the Velvet Underground & Nico session, featuring logical (not logical) bedfellows Nigel Godrich and Giovanni Ribisi. Now it's on to Songs Of Leonard Cohen, which stars "Devendra Banhart, Ben, Andrew and Matt from MGMT, Andrew from Wolfmother, Binki from Little Joy, and Brian [Lebarton] and Bram [Inscore] returning from the first Record Club," and was chosen by Andrew from MGMT. (Ace Of Base was their "second choice." Brainstorming!) First up is album opener and all-around classic "Suzanne," which the club gives a gruff, groovy, and cello-lined redo -- because that's just how it came out. Beck says: "There is no intention to 'add to' the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens." Here it is in video form:

"Master Song" will be next week's choice because it is track two. Stay tuned to beck.com for that, along with things like chats with Will Ferrell, weekly DJ mixes, and other bits to make everyone else seem lazy in comparison.

Posted at 11:21 AM by amrit in Video
Tags: Beck | Devendra Banhart | Leonard Cohen | Little Joy | MGMT

14 Comments

Ugh. This is tuneless.

Posted by: oh. at 09/04/09 12:03 PM  | Reply
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Getting Will Ferell and T.Waits was clever...The 82 MJ interview in the new Interview is very interesting too...Robert Altman ,"Dukes of Hazard" blah,blah blah....

Posted by: Build It Up {True Insturmental} at 09/04/09 12:08 PM  | Reply
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love Beck.
But.
This covers project is HORRiBLE.

Posted by: snow white at 09/04/09 1:09 PM  | Reply
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Painful and embarrassing...

Posted by: claudia at 09/04/09 1:36 PM  | Reply
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I have the strange feeling that this would be better if it wasn't so cluttered.

Posted by: st.sebastion at 09/04/09 2:21 PM  | Reply
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its gonna get good when the beck/wilco collab starts getting posted.

jeff tweedy does not stand for shit (minus sky blue sky)

Posted by: drew at 09/04/09 4:22 PM  | Reply
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Tweedy is a bastard

Posted by: Nick  in reply to drew's comment at 09/08/09 10:48 PM  | Reply
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That is unbearable to listen to. I hope the rest of the songs aren't complete slayings of Leonard Cohen classics.

Posted by: Jeffrey Thomas III at 09/04/09 5:11 PM  | Reply
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Not everything he covers will be a good. I'm sure he'll cover something really worth listening to sooner or later...
Right? ?

Posted by: SubSickAlien at 09/05/09 5:36 PM  | Reply
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Ok, this is sloppy. But that's part of its ramshackle charm. I've really been enjoying the covers project. The VU covers were entertaining, creative, interesting re-imaginings of the songs.

Posted by: Josh at 09/06/09 12:05 PM  | Reply
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This is really good. Im a big fan. Beck does some great stuff.

Posted by: RouteNote at 09/07/09 5:46 AM  | Reply
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If the second person singing lead is Andrew from MGMT, I might not like MGMT anymore...

Posted by: Emmylou at 09/07/09 4:24 PM  | Reply
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This is like a triple-bill of alt-rock mediocrity.

Posted by: DavidsNote at 09/08/09 12:14 PM  | Reply
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this project should be universally banned. I've never heard anything so terrible, it makes me hate the world. if I could I would murder everyone involved. urdoingitwrong Destroy Classic Records Club... FUCK YOU

Posted by: ihatethis at 10/02/09 3:01 PM  | Reply
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