Golden Feelings (1993)

Golden Feelings (1993)

Golden Feelings

Golden Feelings is likely the most forgotten and least-known Beck record. Originally, it was a very limited cassette-only release in 1993; the label, Sonic Enemy re-issued it on CD in 1999, which Beck didn’t like so that wound up being a really limited pressing, too. Like most of Beck’s earliest releases, Golden Feelings comes off like a sloppy, distorted sketchbook of ideas and sounds that Beck would play with in a fuller way later on. (As it turns out, versions of “No Money No Honey” and “Mutherfukka,” which would later show up on Sterepathetic Soulmanure andMellow Gold respectively with the latter rechristened “Mutherfuker,” first appeared here.) For the moment, on these early albums, Beck had yet to shake the anti-folk approach he’d picked up during his brief stint in NYC. The material on Golden Feelings is sludgy, ugly, with Beck’s voice often sounding like some weird low-pitched troll thing. The whole thing’s in line with the performative, whacked-out nature of Beck’s early career, and if that’s your thing maybe Golden Feelings has some merit beyond being an odd, early glimpse at Beck that helps flesh out the narrative of his career. I’d be willing to guess, though, that for many Beck fans Golden Feelings never really rises up beyond being a piece of Beck career minutiae.