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Beat Happening

Beat Happening

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Album Review

Beat Happening can't be given credit for creating the indie pop genre, but they certainly gave it life in America. This, their first album, is indie pop in its purest form: fuzzy bedroom recordings of simplistic, cutesy songs, with intentionally innocent and juvenile lyrics, which Calvin Johnson belts out with one of the most endearingly bad voices in music history. Their later albums sport better songwriting and are more listenable from a production standpoint, but Beat Happening is as twee and charming as this type of music can get. 1983-85, its CD reissue (with a few live songs and early recordings added), is for devoted indie pop fans only.

Customer Reviews

ummm what?

I dont like this at all. I love indie music but this is just stupid.

Punks on their unique terms

I learned about this band mostly through Michael Azerrad's great book "Our Band Could Be Your Life." It didn't take many listens before I became a fan. Beat Happening is one of those bands that fall squarely under the category known as "If you like that kind of thing, then I guess that's the kind of thing you like." I can't really quarrel with anyone who says they can't play or can't sing, but to me their amateurishness works to their benefit, and their wit and sense of melody and unaffected sincerity make up for a great deal. (Also, I actually kind of love Heather Lewis's voice.) There are hundreds of more professional or more punk bands that just don't interest me at all -- I'll take Beat Happening any day over Black Flag, for example. I live in the South, far away from Seattle, and I've yet to meet anyone who has heard of this band, let alone confessed to liking them. When that day occurs, I think I'll feel as if we are members in a very cool, very special, very secret society.

Beat Happening

If you have any interest in indie pop from any decade this CD's for you. Calvin and his K records were the kings of it in the 80s and this was their start. Excellent album for anyone to pick up.

Biography

Formed: 1982 in Olympia, WA

Genre: Alternative

Years Active: '80s, '90s

Beat Happening was among the truly seminal and influential American bands of the post-punk era, a paragon of pop minimalism, rebellious innocence, and indie defiance. The linchpin of the Olympia, WA-based International Pop Underground, they adopted a stance in direct opposition to the accepted norms at the heart of rock music; ignoring all notions of pretense, professionalism, and stardom, Beat Happening created an unorthodox, raw sound which democratically rotated vocal, guitar, and drum duties...
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