Stow the 'tude, queenie!

Hey y'all.

Here, for no one's enjoyment, is my review of Beck's latest album, Guero. It comes out March 29, 2005 from Geffen records. Y'all should pick it up, if you're into that kind of thing. Anywhoski, hope all is well with you. You look nice. Is that a new shirt? No? Well, you look good in it. Have a good day!

Looking back on the work of musical chameleon Beck, it’s easy to classify and define his albums by the alcohol that accompanies listening to them. Odelay can chronicle a night of barhopping binge-drinking madness, avoiding the darkened dive bars for the frantic energy of the discotheque, all while jumping with wild abandon from drink to drink with no thought about tomorrow morning. Mutations—a subdued album tinged with Brasilica arrangements—is enjoyed through refreshing margaritas and some reflective conversation with close friends. Midnite Vultures is the soundtrack to the grinding bodies and drowned out conversations of a keg party, plastic cups filling over with innuendos and hedonism. Sea Change, Beck’s somber album detailing his recent heartbreak, plays in the background as one drowns his sorrows inside of a lonely glass of scotch. And now comes Guero, his latest, that easily doubles as mood music for the next cocktail party at any self-respecting hipster’s apartment, complete with ironically placed tchotchkes and winking references.

Guero finds Beck re-teaming with the Dust Brothers, the production team behind the scatterbrained brilliance of Beck’s Odelay. And while his last album may have been a meditation on lost love, Beck’s newest evokes the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink genre-bending attitude of Odelay and Midnite Vultures while keeping some echoes of the maturity and world-weariness displayed on Sea Change.

The opening song “E-Pro” kicks off with driving, raucous beats and a gritty guitar that is reminiscent of The Go! Team, but is wholly Beck’s own invention complete with his postmodern spin on anything familiar. Like the rest Guero, “E-Pro” is infused with pop sensibilities; it was born a Pop song, but once Beck gets a hold of it he turns it into something different, unique, and incredibly entertaining. Scattered throughout this song is the taunting cry of “Na Na Na”, almost a lighthearted teasing amongst the bombastic percussion and strutting lyrics. Beck has sprinkled similar monosyllabic refrains throughout these songs, utilizing the “Na Na Na”s, “Doo Doo Doo”s, and “La La La”s, that familiar nonsensical vocabulary of Pop, to represent a happily indifferent attitude to the insanity around him.

The familiar thumping beat of techno and hip-hop is present once more in Beck’s music—pushing the song and listener to some unknown destination. Laid over these drums is either a few raw and gritty chords or else a twangy guitar that evokes an early recording session at Sun Records. It’s clearly not dance music, but don’t tell that to Beck. Nowhere is this more evident than in the song “Scarecrow” which starts off sounding like Thriller-era Michael Jackson before slipping into that Southern fried guitar. The whole song resembles a honky tonk “Jumpin Jack Flash” by way of Berry Gordy’s Hitsville, USA.

It’s not just the eclectic arrangements that work so well, but also Beck’s famously and oddly woven lyrics. His lyrical abilities took on absurdist proportions in the ironical rap-speak of Midnite Vultures. Those tendencies return in some songs, like the amusing posturing found in “E-Pro” (“talking trash to the garbage around you”) and “Hell Yes” (“looking for shelter through juxtaposition”). But mostly it appears as if Beck has something other than frivolity on his mind. He mentions souls, devils, and angels, almost in passing, in most of his songs, collapsing the mundane with the profound in one easy couplet. Many of Guero’s songs also detail some form of journey, either an existential one or simply just going to the local fair. These recurring themes paint a surreal picture of an every man on an incidental quest to find and preserve his immortal soul.

Guero is an odd album, in that it is at once an overview of Beck’s previous work while simultaneously forging a new sound and face for the talented performer. His ealier albums are found within the tracks on Guero—the rump shaking beats of Midnite Vultures, the breakneck energy of Odelay, the melancholic latin influence of Mutations, and the introspective musings of Sea Change are all present and often combined with one another. But they are much more than the simple sum of their parts. It appears like Beck attempted to write the score for a postmodern Spaghetti western that will never be made, and succeeded in creating the lackadaisical soundtrack of the summer for all hipsters, seekers, and fellow wanderers for years to come.

4.5 out of 5