Album Review: Beat Happening - Look Around

So look, I downloaded the Beat Happening anthology, Look Around, purely for its cover art. I mean, how could I not, right? After skimming the recent Pitchfork review of it, and seeing that 8.2 it was given (but not Best New Reissue) I thought, “Well I sure hope I like the music.”

I’m obviously about 30 years late to the party for Beat Happening—the band’s first album was issued when I was two years old and it’s last when I was in the fourth grade. But hey, here I am, listening to some college rock that’s about as old as I am.

Mostly chronological, Look Around pulls 23 songs from the band’s five album canon, often sequenced to alternate between the deep, Lou Reed-esq talk/sing baritone of oddball frontman Calvin Harris, and the softer, exponentially more “twee” female vocals of drummer, Heather Lewis.

Apparently, according to the Pitchfork review of Look Around, Beat Happening were pretty darn influential in their time, often being citied for their impression on the indie pop, lo-fi, and even punk rock movements of the late 80s and early 90s.

To say that Beat Happening is “weird” is an understatement, and more than anything—pop, lo-fi, or punk—I’m getting some very strong Velvet Underground vibes from it.

Perhaps it has to do with the dissonance with witch Harris delivers his lyrics. Or perhaps it has to do with the song structure of these 23 tracks—many of which barely reach over 3 minutes, and all of them, no matter what length, are primarily sparse and primitive in their instrumentation and production, calling to mind the more drugged out and simple moments of the Velvet Underground—specifically on the song that is playing right now, as I type this, “Tiger Trap,” with its repetitive, nearly stagnant guitar chord strumming and minimalistic percussion, and then there’s Harris, talk/singing over the top of it all with his voice reaching for notes he’s not quite hitting (or maybe not even trying to.) Anyway, it all just reminds me of the Velvet Underground.

And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I mean, I casually like the Velvet Underground just as much as the next 32 year old internet music critic does. But I guess going into this album, with knowing absolutely nothing about the band, the influence came as a bit of a surprise—as well as the surprise of being able to tell, almost instantly, the influence that Beat Happening had on their contemporaries Yo La Tengo.

And much like the Velvet Underground, Beat Happening’s music is good, but it’s not a very easily accessible listen—making it the kind of music that you certainly have to be in the right frame of mind for. Also, attempting to listen to 23 songs cut from relatively the same cloth can be a bit of an endurance test—I am guessing this is even the case for a true fan of the band, not some Johnny Come Lately who just happened upon this a few days ago.

For the casual fan, or the new listener, Look Around, aside from having the cutest cover art, is a fine, and lengthy, introduction to an important band that probably gets overlooked when pop music influences are discussed, and it shows why a band like this is worth revisiting—because to understand the present, you should better understand the past.

Look Around is out now via Domino.