“A Pop Ambush Involving Beck, Lotus Plaza… and More!”

I’m just pointing this out because apparently nobody else on the Internet ever has: Lotus Plaza, side project of Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt, makes undeniable use of Beck’s “Soldier Jane” for what is perhaps that band’s best song, “Eveningness.” In fact, the verses of the two songs are identical in chord progression and vocal rhythm, and close to identical in vocal melody (actually Pundt’s voice is so hazed-out sometimes that it’s hard to tell what note he’s singing, which if course is to his and his band’s credit). [1]
Now, part of why I get pleasure out of pointing this out is that “Soldier Jane” has always been my favorite song on Beck’s 2006 album The Information, which I find SLIGHTLY lacking in inspiration when compared to his ‘90s stuff like Odelay and Mutations (but then, what wouldn’t be, stacked up next to that). It’s got this eerie wintertime feel (I was really into it this one early December, I remember, when I’d just moved into Indianapolis which yes for me is a big city). Also this whole comparison begs the question: which song has the better CHORUS? And in this proposition I would say the nod would have to go to Lotus Plaza, not least for its ability to solidify them as the only band on iTunes with a song called “Eveningness.” The whole situation is also ironic because Beck himself stepped in as a hack job citing The Allman Brothers Band’s “Melissa” as plagiarism material for the first song on Morning Phase and… did that album win a Grammy? I’m really confused here. Maybe I’ll just start listening to all Deadmau5, all the time.
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[1] Further along these lines, there’s no doubt that Lotus Plaza does leaps and bounds over Beck in the production department, the latter recording Mellow Gold in his living room and then usually enlisting the Dust Brothers for his more auspicious projects.

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