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
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Ever since his thrilling 1994 debut with Mellow Gold, each new Beck album
was a genuine pop cultural event, since it was never clear which direction
he would follow. Kicking off his career as equal parts noise-prankster,
indie folkster, alt-rocker, and ironic rapper, he's gone to extremes,
veering between garishly ironic party music to brooding heartbroken
baroque-pop, and this unpredictability is a large part of his charm, since
each album was distinct from the one before.
That remains true with Guero, his eighth album (sixth, if you don't count
1994's Stereopathetic Soul Manure and One Foot In The Grave, which some
don't) but the surprising thing here is that it sounds for all the world
like a good, straight-ahead, garden variety Beck album, which is something
he's never delivered prior to this 2005 release. In many ways, Guero is
deliberately designed as a classicist Beck album, a return to the sound
and aesthetic of his 1996 masterwork Odelay. After all, he's reteamed with
the producing team of the Dust Brothers, who are widely credited for the
dense, sample collage sound of Odelay, and the light, bright Guero stands
in stark contrast to the lush melancholy of 2002's Sea Change while
simultaneously bearing a knowing kinship to the sound that brought him his
greatest critical and commercial success in the mid-'90s.
This has all the trappings of being a cold, calculating maneuver, but the
album never plays as crass. Instead, it sounds as if Beck, now a husband
and father in his mid-'30s, is revisiting his older aesthetic and
sensibility from a new perspective. The sound has remained essentially the
same - it's still a kaleidoscopic jumble of pop, hip-hop and indie rock,
with some Brazilian and electro touches thrown in - but Beck is a hell of
a lot calmer, never indulging in the lyrical or musical flights of fancy or
the absurdism that made Mellow Gold and Odelay such giddy listens. He now
operates with the skill and precision of a craftsman, never dumping too
many ideas into one song, paring his words down to their essentials, mixing
the record for a wider audience than just his friends. Consequently, Guero
never is as surprising or enthralling as Odelay, but Beck is also not trying
to be as wild and funny as he was a decade ago. He's shifted away from
exaggerated wackiness - which is good, since it wouldn't wear as well on a
34-year-old as it would on a man a decade younger - and concentrated on the
record-making, winding up with a thoroughly enjoyable LP that sounds warm
and familiar upon the first play and gets stronger with each spin.
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG
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About the Album
Beck's sixth major-label album is a stunning return to the anything-goes format of 1996's Odelay. Standing in sharp contrast to its predecessor, the quiet and somber Sea Change, 2005's Guero is the sound of the Los Angeles singer/songwriter cutting loose and getting back to the slacker funk that won him legions of fans in the 1990s. "E-Pro" kicks off the festivities with a heavy guitar riff and a Beastie Boys-sampled beat, while "Qu? Onda Guero" revels in a sunny Latin vibe, with Beck rapping (surprisingly well) in Spanish. However, this outing also offers up Mutations-worthy melodic pop, particularly on "Girl," a brilliantly catchy tune carried along by acoustic guitar, handclaps, and lush vocal harmonies. Beck's reunion with sound sculptors Mike Simpson and John King (the Dust Brothers) breathes plenty of life into these tracks, including the heavily percussive "Black Tambourine" and the '70s-inspired "Earthquake Weather." Jack White (of the famously bass-less White Stripes) lends a bluesy bass line to "Go It Alone," while many of Beck's longtime musicians (guitarist Smokey Hormel, bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen) turn up throughout the record. An album that features Beck energetically jumping back into his renowned cut-and-paste aesthetic, Guero is sure to please longtime fans, and may win over young listeners who thought that he was primarily a sad-sack folkie. This deluxe edition includes seven bonus tracks on the CD. The DVD includes a 5.1 audio version of the full album and video remixes for each track.
About the Artist
Born Beck Hansen on July 8, 1970, in Los Angeles, California, Beck rose swiftly to prominence in 1994 with his exhilarating marriage of folk (Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie) and guitar noise. As a child he loitered around his bluegrass street musician father, living with his office-worker mother and half-brother in some of Los Angeles' worst addresses, picking up on the city's nascent hip-hop scene as a breakdancer. He also spent time in Kansas with his grandmother and Presbyterian preacher grandfather, and with his other grandfather, the artist Al Hansen, in Europe. His guitar-playing, however, was primarily inspired by the blues of Mississippi John Hurt, which he would deliver with improvised lyrics while busking. After dropping out of school at 16 he moved to New York, though he was unable to join in with the local punk scene. On his return to Los Angeles he played his first gigs in between sets at clubs such as Raji's and Jabberjaw. His music was now a potpourri of those diverse early influences - street hip-hop, Delta blues, Presbyterian hymns, punk with scat lyrics - and the whole was beginning to take shape as he released his first single, "MTV Makes Me Want To Smoke Crack," the title of which would be made ironic by his future success in that very medium. This was followed by Loser, a 12-inch for Los Angeles independent Bong Load Custom Records produced with hip-hop technician Karl Stephenson. Those who might try retrospectively to read something sardonic into this title should be reminded that Beck was, at the time, living in a rat-infested shed: "I was working in a video store doing things like alphabetizing the pornography section for minimum wage." When Loser was finally released after a year's delay in the summer of 1993, critics fell over themselves to cite it as an anthem for doomed youth. Vaulted into the pop charts, Beck was suddenly viewed as a baby-faced saviour for the "slacker" generation, a platform he was most unwilling to mount: "I never had any slack. I was working a $4-an-hour job trying to stay alive. I mean, that slacker kind of stuff is for people who have the time to be depressed about everything." The major labels swooped for his signature. Geffen Records won possibly the most competitive chase for an artist in a decade, though not before David Geffen had telephoned Beck at home, and the artist had already set in motion two more independent records - Steve Threw Up for Bong Load and a 10-inch album, A Western Harvest Field By Moonlight, on Fingerpaint Records. Despite this, the contract with Geffen was highly unusual in that it allowed Beck to record and release material for other companies should he wish - a right he took delight in exercising. The Mellow Gold debut for Geffen was only one of three albums scheduled for release in 1994. The second, Stereopathetic Soul Manure, appeared on LA's Flipside independent, and the third, a collaboration with Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening, emerged on K Records. Odelay was Beck's next major release in the spring of 1996, and was an outstanding record of great depth and multiple layers. The album reaped numerous Album Of The Year awards in the music press and spawned five successful singles, including "Where It's At" and a Noel Gallagher (Oasis) remix of "Devil's Haircut." His major label follow-up Mutations was originally planned for release on Bong Load, but its downbeat charms were still impressive for what was effectively a stopgap collection. Beck returned to the mix-and-match style of Odelay on 1999's soul-influenced Midnite Vultures, but following a successful tour to promote the album he entered an unusually quiet period. His return to the studio was typically adventurous, teaming up with producer Nigel Goodrich to record an album of introspective, acoustic-based material. Universally praised on release, Sea Change confirmed Beck as without doubt one of America's most original musical talents.
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