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Guero - Beck
Now that Beck has effectively exorcised his personal demons with 2002's hyper-confessional Sea Change, he can get back to the business of being a total fruit loop. We all know what that involves: video game sound effects, random shouting in Spanish, and rhymes about popsicles and vegetable vans. And that's just the second track. Guero is like every Beck album condensed into one, a no-holds-barred collision of two-turntables and a microphone with the added bonus of guitars, bossa nova beats, Jack White, lyrics about spaceships and dump truck full of ideas all fighting to get heard about the ruckus. It's an exhausting and exhilarating listen with lots of peaks, such as the digitized power ballad "Broken Drum" and handclap drench folk freak-out "Farewell Ride," and more than enough to restore anyone's faith in Beck as one of the most chaotically inspired songwriters of our time. -- Aidin Vaziri
Album Description
Three years after the critically acclaimed and heartwrenching opus "Sea Change," THREE-TIME GRAMMY WINNER and FIVE-TIME MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARD WINNER BECK returns with his most diverse, accomplished and compelling work to date: "GUERO." With the raucous first single "E-Pro" triumphantly "na-na-na"-ing Beck's return with a must-be-seen-to-be believed video by Shynola (Queens of the Stone Age, Radiohead), "GUERO" both reunites Beck with classic co-conspirators the Dust Brothers and explores territories uncharted by even this most innovative artist of his generation.
beck, beck music
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Sea Change - Beck
.....eventually this had to happen. After the outrageous "Midnite Vultures", where could Beck go? "Sea Change" is more layed back than anything Beck has ever released. The tunes were written during a break-up with a long time girlfriend, and they really reflect his feelings at the time (reminiscent of Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks", in a way). Mr. Hanson, who once hip-hopped and falsettoed about robots, junkies, and Christmas in July, has found his introspective side, and let me say, it's lovely. It passes what I call the "Pet Sounds" test, which very few artists pass in their careers. This means that Beck has used as many studio resources as he could to get this album perfect.....and it's the closest he's ever come. This is a masterpiece. - Jeff Beal
beck, beck music
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Midnite Vultures - Beck
The multi-talented Beck Hansen has an uncanny ability to squirm out of any artistic pigeonhole in which he finds himself. Anyone who sees him primarily as the Gen-X poster boy of "Loser," or even the cut-and-paste artist of Odelay, is behind the times. Those impressions, after all, can be attributed more to the media than Beck himself, who remains elusive and consistent at the center of it all. That's at least partly the result of Beck's ability to funnel just about any style of music into his own creations, as last year's rich, organic Mutations proved. If that record was largely about finding subtlety and delicacy in Beck's trademark pastiche style, the new Midnite Vultures takes the opposite approach. An entertainingly excessive album, its libidinous funk mosaic finds Beck coming on like a master of ceremonies overseeing a sci-fi orgy. On "Nicotine & Gravy," Beck promises, "I'll feed you fruit that don't exist / I'll leave graffiti where you've never been kissed," inventing seductive invitations that never occurred to Barry White. A sex album meant to affect senses above the neck as much as below the waist, Midnite Vultures pairs Beck's R&B love-man shtick with a full-band sound, layering its beats with everything from pounding bass to new-wave keyboards to Johnny Marr's guitar to, on more than one occasion, a banjo. It's simultaneously funny and funky, at once musically engaging and a continuation of Beck's mind-twisting campaign of musical appropriation. What exactly does it mean when a scrawny white guy promises to "make all the lesbians scream" on an album that borrows heavily from three decades of black music? There's no easy way to answer to that question, or to describe this relentlessly entertaining record. It might be better just to enjoy it for what it is and rest assured that the next one will sound nothing like it.
beck, beck music
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Mutations - Beck
On his 1996 breakthrough album Odelay, Beck Hansen surprised a sleepy music community by blending funk, rock, rap, alternative, and electronica in ways that were both startlingly innovative and irresistibly catchy. Mutations is equally attention-grabbing but not in the gangbusters-pimp-rock-meets-indie-geek style you might expect. Reflective and plaintive, the album reveals Beck's more sentimental side with an eclectic collection of acoustic-based songs that will sound familiar to anyone who cherishes his indie-rock effort One Foot in the Grave. And don't think just because Beck's gone soft, he's gotten boring. From one song to the next, the chameleonic guru strums pensively, shimmies to a bossa nova rhythm, swirls on a psychedelic cloud, plucks Baroque strains from a harpsichord, and weeps countrified tears into a rusty tin bucket. On Mutations, Beck proves that an undistorted guitar and a bit of creativity can easily sound as exciting as two turntables and a microphone. --Jon Wiederhorn
Rolling Stone
Mutations ... brims with death, decay and decrepitude. But in its own peculiar way, it's also [Beck's] prettiest record to date.
Vibe
Unlike the ragged-but-right wheeze that's characterized Beck's previous side trips, Mutations is an exploration of more classic '60s Brit-pop structures and arrangements.
beck, beck music
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Odelay - Beck
Here it is. The album that caused so many critics to pack up their bags and call it a decade. They'd found the album of the 90s. And what more could we ask for in the 90s? Genre-destroying Beck has broken the rules and the categories to give us pure music, no, pure sound! The high-points (and there are many) don't rely on songwriting or musical ability, for the endless samples combine with Beck's many instrumentsto create pseudo-melodies and harmonies with Beck's oddball lyrics on top. The meaningless doggerel only slightly brings the album down, but we can all go listen to Dylan on our own time. This is Beck's time. He is the master of his domain. With the Dust Brothers he creates a completely different type of pleasure. The music sounds like it could self-destruct at any moment, but it just keeps on coming. You listen, and suddenly you're colliding through peeling layers of sonic texture, and loving it. Beck's fatal flaw, however, is that hi! ! s musical scope is so broad that it is hard to like all of his songs. Not everyone can be expected to like so many styles of music. Beck shines when he makes it his own style. Beck is the man. He is our leader.
beck, beck music
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Mellow Gold - Beck
Far more than a novelty jester, Beck is a musical anarchist and bummed-out street prophet whose audience will squirm and thrill to the slacker delta blues of "Whiskeyclone" and urban nightmares like "Truckdrivin Neighbors Downstairs." --Jeff Bateman
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Stereopathetic Soulmanure - Beck
When the consensus is that you're the new Dylan, it's your prerogative to rewrite the record industry's rules. So in 1994, the same year Beck had major-label hits with "Loser" and the album Mellow Gold, he saw fit (and was allowed by his label, Geffen) to release three other records on various indie labels. While none challenged Beck's "real" album in quality or sales, Stereopathetic Soul Manure is his most successful collection of unpolished toss-offs. Collecting various low-fi recordings made between 1988 and '93, the record alternates between folkie strumming, pedal-steel country, noise-guitar freakouts, and bizarre soundbites. Not essential, but it has its charms. --Roni Sarig
beck, beck music
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