I love talking about music (you can tell) and while thus far I've focused on bands from fifty-plus years ago, my tastes are quasi more modern than that... sometimes. So I'd like to look at an artist who actually made his first record after I was born... the incomparable Beck.
Beck definitely has a varied discography. Always willing to experiment, at the top of his game he truly transcends genres of music while reinventing them (quote courtesy of one B.B Rodriguez).
(as an aside I will not be counting his 1993 album Golden Feelings, as it was re-released in 1999 without his permission and so probably shouldn't qualify. It's also an extremely rare album to own)
All right let's get this devil's haircut.
Hyperspace (2019)
*1/2
There is a truly awful Beck album and man... this is cringe worthy. Hearing the dude who wrote songs like 'Devil's Haircut', 'The New Pollution' or 'Lost Cause' turn out generic auto-tuned blandness was painful to hear. I couldn't wait for this album to be over once I was three songs in. At least Colors (which I'm not a fan of either) has a couple of groovy dance songs. This is the worst type of generic emotive drab.
Beck is just trying so painfully hard to be modern here. Sure, the production sounds good... but Hyperspace fails so miserably because there's nothing interesting about these songs. They all blend together. I went in expecting a retro-80s pop record, loaded with synth and funky songcraft... instead it just meanders with forgettable moody lyrics, boring melody and the occasional bad rap interjection that makes you wish Adam Yauch was still around to punch some... uh punch into this (RIP).
Hyperspace just sort of exists and leaves no lasting impression, a mash of lazy modern pop music that lacks any hooks, thoughtfulness or anything melodically redeemable. This is one of the worst albums I've ever heard, and it pains me to say since I obviously love Beck (kinda writing an article about him here) but I never want to hear this album ever again. Holy colon evacuation.
Colors (2017)
**1/2
Yeah sorry... but this album isn't very good either. At least it's way better than Hyperspace, since this actually sounds fun instead of like doctor's office music. Beck has a unique musical style but here it really sounds like he's trying to follow rather than innovate popular trends. Which... fine! If that's the music that interests him and the kind of thing he wants to create... it's his art and he can do whatever he wants with it. He's given us so much great music these past three decades that he's earned some critical grace (which Hyperspace eats up so much of that I'm seriously worried what his next album will be).
The biggest issue with Colors is every song trying so hard to be a Top 40 radio hit, and mostly failing even that bar. There are moments: the title track is catchy... while "Dear Life" is a damn good Beck song a decade too late, belonging more on Modern Guilt than here. Everything else here is forgettable at best. "Wow" to me is unlistenable (the biggest culprit of Top 40 wishful desperation) and tunes like "Up All Night" or "No Distraction" just don't go anywhere. It's not horrible but well below his high standard.
Stereopathetic Soulmanure (1994)
**1/2
This record... is just fascinating. A mishmash of home recordings, bootlegs of live performances, noise experiments and just random clips without context or meaning complied over years. Definitely not good overall, it's a tedious listen at many points... but I can't help respect how it has nothing resembling concept or structure, which is likely the point. And some songs like "Puttin' It Down", "Satan Gave Me a Taco" or the live ramble "Ozzy" show Beck's embryotic songwriting skill, melody and off-ball humour. With early Beck you're never totally sure if he's embracing slacker culture or making fun of it, or both.
Midnite Vultures (1999)
***1/2
Oh Mr. Hansen...
Finally though, we're getting into actual good records. Like Colors eighteen years later, Midnite Vultures seems an example of Beck trying hard to be modern. The difference is where Colors sounds stale, like music you've already heard before, Midnite Vultures pops with genuine fresh energy. It's a semi-forgotten record in his catalogue (sandwiched by two very acoustic albums) and while the goofiness is often a bit too much, the strength of this album are its really fun grooves. The mood of it is so bizarre it's quite fascinating... it really sounds like a weekend partying in Los Angeles that you hazily remember while stumbling to the next moment of insanity.
Some great songs are "Sexx Laws" (as seen on Futurama... usually that song doesn't last three hours but we got into a kind of thing)... "Nicotine & Gravy" seduces you like a charismatic stranger on a seedy street corner... "Beautiful Way" slows down the hedonism and brings this world back into something resembling reality... and "Debra" is an extended closer (most of Beck's 90s albums feature this) that definitely shows some Prince influence. Overall... this album probably isn't for everyone but it's incredibly fun, and is way better than anything he's made in over ten years because he just isn't taking himself too seriously.
The cover is pretty dreadful though.
Morning Phase (2014)
***1/2
Often referred to as "Sea Change Part Two", which I think is a result of the song "Morning" basically copying the exact chord structure from "Golden Age"... it's weird when you listen to an artist plagiarize themselves.
I kid though. Morning Phase is a grower, but worth some patience. It's mellow as hell (which, now that I think of it... Hell probably isn't mellow). The emotions aren't as intense as on Sea Change: the wishful longing of youth is swapped with wistful acquiesence. It feels too emotionally numb to really hit any delicate spot, but it's played tight and that bit of twang really helps slow these songs enough to let them breathe. Beck is exploring some roots here, with lots of straight-forward folk rock and country influenced atmospheric tunes. It gets rather boring at times, since the production is overloaded to my taste... but he has some terrific songs here underneath the layer of melodrama wanting to insist upon itself. I'd like it more if it were stripped down just a bit, but still the engaged songwriting shines through. In a way this is Beck's Nashville Skyline: not a masterpiece but a solid, interesting record.
Mutations (1998)
***1/2
The problem with Mutations is... well it's kinda boring.
Not to say it's a bad album. It's actually quite good... but it just kinda lulls you to sleep. It takes those slow trippier moments of Odelay and turns it into an entire record... making this an enjoyable, solid-all-the-way-through affair, yet unfortunately that neutral tone of it just bleeds everywhere. Perfect low key background music, but it simply doesn't capture your attention. I've listened to this album dozens of times and I still get certain songs confused with others.
It has some notable songs. "Nobody's Fault But My Own" (not to be confused with the equally great Zep tune) is a standout, as is the off kilter blues of "O Maria". Odelay is in my opinion a masterpiece because each song seems like it exists within its own melodic universe... mixing together so many musical influences to create something new and unique. Mutations instead sticks with one consistent vibe, which in of itself is fine... it's just that this dreamy brand of semi-psychodelic folky blues just kinda passes by. It simply just exists while you listen, leaving little in a lasting impact. Stronger in atmosphere than substance.
One Foot In The Grave (1994)
****
For somebody perhaps popularly known for energetic weirdness... so much of what Beck has actually recorded and released is loaded with bleak dissonance.
This album is just pure minimalism, which is probably what I love about it. They're essentially home recordings, an adventure in lo-fi, as Beck plays simple folk-ish tunes that sound like covers played in a living room... but most are actually originals and reveal their brilliance through their simplicity. No song is longer than three minutes, some barely longer than one, and there are a lot of them... hurting the overall quality of the album since some of these really sound like he's making up the lyrics as he goes... but this also plays to his advantage more often than not. "He's a Mighty Good Leader" just sticks in your mind with its catchy simplicity, "Outcome" is like falling down a bottomless hole and thinking "meh" the whole time, and "Asshole" is an incredible breakup song with its surreal lyrics that perfectly capture that feeling of losing somebody because of nonsensical circumstance.
This is a very bare bones record and the roughshod production quality might not be for everyone, but it is a record rich with treasures for those willing to look beyond the ramshackle exterior. I consider Beck a very underrated lyricist and he's in excellent form here.
Modern Guilt (2008)
****
We were blessed in the mid 2000s with some great releases in popular rock music: In Rainbows by Radiohead... Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People, Gimme Fiction by Spoon... just to name a few personal favourites. Beck was rather productive during this period as well: between 2005 and 2008 he released three full length studio albums. Exactly as many as he's released since, and in my opinion none of those new ones are on the same planet of quality.
Modern Guilt is the weakest mid-2000s Beck album, since it gets a bit too experimental with its song structure at times and they don't all land... but frankly all of his 00s records are good and yet extremely different. This album definitely reflects its title: while not slow in tone or melody, it finds the artist back in a mode of bleakness after the off kilter fun of Guero and the futurism of The Information. Beck is no stranger to this, of course, except here he mixes minimal production (lots of empty space and drum machines) with strange beats, occasional keyboard and vocal delay. There's a subtle sense of impending and accepted doom to the music, like a world preparing for inevitable apocalypse. Geez, maybe this album came out twelve years too early.
My only issue is how it loses steam in the middle (when it goes for weird sound over stronger songcraft). Modern Guilt really has some exceptional songs though. "Profanity Prayers" is an all-time great Beck song, the way its groove picks up like a chugging train yet sounds dissonant at the same time. "Orphans" (the opening track featuring Cat Power) is a perfect introduction to the poppy desolation present throughout this record, and "Volcano" carries you up to the summit with its bizarre disturbing story, like you're on the precipice staring into the lava and cannot look away.
Modern Guilt, despite having a couple tunes that miss, is in my opinion the last great
album Beck has made. There's still time though. Crossed fingers.
Mellow Gold (1994)
****1/2
This is where I suspect fans will disagree with me, since Mellow Gold is considered by many a seminal album of the 90s and one of his masterpieces.
Hey, I agree. This is a great album and I always enjoy it whenever I pop it on. "Soul Suckin' Jerk" with its incredible bassline and insane lyrical washout story.... mixing hip-hop with grunge with a wink. What makes Beck so good on albums like this is his vocal adaptability: he does so many different things that are perfect for each of these diverse, bizarre songs. He can rap well, he can adopt a Jim Morrison type brood... he can wail like Ozzy Osbourne if he wants.
Mellow Gold isn't quite as strong, in my opinion, as him truly at his pinnacle. I find it somewhat uneven: a mishmash of raw experimentation but lacking the charm One Foot In The Grave carries. Still, this is an incredibly capable musician exploring what he could do and, unlike his noisy earlier bootlegs, really tightening up and delivering on those talents. It's a terrific record and really showcases his incredible range of songcraft... but he has albums that do even better.
Guero (2005)
****1/2
I'm gonna come out and say it: I don't think "E-Pro" is an amazing song. It's fine, but I hope people don't judge this album (and my high ranking of it) because of that song. Honestly, I usually skip it to get to the good stuff I like more.
And yes my friends, this album is full of good stuff. You have the wandering semi-salsa flair of "Missing" (which looks long when you realize it's a five minute song... but it doesn't linger)... the amazing groove of "Scarecrow" (great bassline)... the urgency of "Black Tambourine" (the song sounds like a close friend whispering in your ear about something completely meaningless)... "Hell Yes" is an enjoyable electro stomp finding Beck back in weirdo hip-hop mode (always reliable, at least until Hyperspace)...
Honestly, this album is "Odelay 2005", but done exactly how that kind of album should sound. It was fun back then, and it holds up now as just a good reliable listen. Each song gives you something different. Just a greatly enjoyable album front to back, full of Beck at his funky unpredictable best.
The Information (2006)
****1/2
I probably like this album more than anyone I know. Heck, most of my musician friends aren't even too familiar with it.
General consensus is that this is a solid Beck album... so my deeper affinity for it is tied to a few situational aspects. It was released around the time I started working at the Drake Hotel (I was barely 19) and during a staff party we all booked it from a staff party because we got word that Beck (the man himself) was completely out of nowhere going to perform in the Drake Underground within the hour. Luckily we all made it in time and... oh man... it's something I'll never forget. A surreal moment.
So I always associate this album with that period in my life. That period post high school of not exactly knowing what I'm doing (how things have changed ha), and anytime I listen to this album it takes me back to 2006... my feelings of living at home still, the friends I talked to a lot that summer... working a new job at the insane place that was the 2006 Drake.
All of that said, beyond my obvious nostalgia, this album is so damn good. Even now, 14 years later, it has such a futuristic feel to it... like this is music that we'll be listening to when we get to Mars. Once those drums in "Elevator Music" kick you into the groove, you know you're in for a great album. "Strange Apparation" is a song I've performed live myself, and (when I'm not doing it) it totally sounds like a Rolling Stones song left off of Let It Bleed. It sounds nothing like any other song here, which works since these none of this feels like it should fit together musically. But it does: this is a record imagining a weird, diverse future.
It's a long album, so I suspect folks could be bored listening to it front to back. I disagree, personally, because unlike Mutations this record brings lots of variety, consistent groove and occasional bursts of dance energy. Each song doesn't blend into the previous one, rather it builds off and makes something new and fantastic from that information (see what I did there). Songs like "Solder Jane" with its fast rhythm... "We Dance Alone" with its irresistible disco groove... "Movie Theme" with how it haunts you like being an astronaut lost in space... a collection of out-of-place tunes blended together to create something cohesive.
I love this record so much, and while I suspect most people who are reading this won't like it as much as I, do seek it out and give a listen or two. It's worth the journey and will reward tenfold more than it disappoints.
Odelay (1996)
*****
Gotta keep this short. Odelay is, in my opinion, one of the best albums of the 90s... and yeah I know Nevermind, OK Computer, Day For Night and Mock Tudor exist (among many other greats). This album though is a masterpiece to me because first: this is Beck blending genres of music together in such a way that he makes it seem lazy and easy, when of course the complication and imagination required is substantial. His imagination here is incredible... an album impossible to think about its major influences because there are so many and Beck just throws them into a blender to create something completely different.
This album is so damn good (just look it up in the Becktionairy... I meant the rhyming Becktionairy). Songs like "Jack-Ass", "Ramshackle", "Hot Wax" and "Minus" are simultaneously rooted in the 90s while still sounding fresh even now. Just listen to "The New Pollution" and yeah you shall understand why I think this album is so damn timeless 24 years later... that song would be a huge hit today. What else can be said? A classic for a reason.
Sea Change (2002)
*****
A very personal choice. It's a breakup record and it will remind you of those demons, but there's a sweetness to the bleakness. Something vulnerable and so human in the atmosphere and songwriting.
Yeah it's definitely a breakup album, in the way Dylan's Blood On The Tracks is a breakup album... filled with themes of lonliness and emptiness from losing somebody who has moved on.
I find Blood On The Tracks dances around those themes more than Sea Change, which is more direct and melancholy in mood, which probably will turn some people off. Bob is often bitter and vengeful on much of Blood, while Beck here is desperate and blinded by loss, struggling to gradually come to terms with reality as the happy memories fade. Sea Change is an album of emotional peaks and valleys where one song like "Lonesome Tears" is loaded with moaning despair and heavy strings, while "Lost Cause" softly laughs grim acceptance of bleak heartbreak. So many emotions grab the mic... tied together by the feeling of losing somebody and knowing (as much as you don't want to admit it to yourself) how they'll be gone and will never be back. It's not a record you play at a party.
Some people like to think of Morning Phase as the sequel to this, which okay. Sea Change is far superior though because the emotion just breaks through above all else here. I like the production (even if it can be heavy handed at times) because it compliments that overall sense of being emotionally lost, helping those lyrics find melodic context rather than smother them. Morning Phase, while a solid record, doesn't reach the same height and feels too subdued or fabricated in places.
There isn't a bad song on Sea Change, really. Each one explores that same theme but with different feeling: expressed through a different melody or a different lyrical perspective. It's an album of desolation and isolation and is so beautiful in that sadness... "Golden Age" is just a gorgeous song so full of longing, soul and just a question of... "what do I do now", with that slight delayed twang adding a perfect touch. It's not an album you listen to all the time, because you have to be in that mood... but it is just a quiet beach to listen to and reflect.
Woo! That's my look at the fascinating catalogue of Beck. What's next? Who knows. Stand by and be surprised. It'll come with a free frogurt*!
(*the toppings are also cursed)
