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7 |
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Beck |
| The Information |
| Interscope | 2006 | Album |
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To be honest, I’ve always thought of Beck as being a cut-and-paste artist. Someone who basically takes styles and pastes them together to make songs. Though he takes obscure songs, styles and artists like the Brazillian psychedelic band Os Mutantes or French crooner Serge Gainsbourg and songs by these artists and others to make hits like “Paper Tiger” off Sea Change for instance, he is still making them his own. While Beck is usually guilty of familiarity (is it just me or does Prince come to mind, often, when listening to Midnite Vultures?) he is also guilty of putting out albums that are genre-bending. Though he may be guilty of biting off great music, I guess he is no different than any other musician influenced by great composers. While some songs off Beck’s new album “The Information” brings familiar artists to mind like the Rolling Stones (“Strange Apparition”), Herbie Hancock (“Cellphone’s Dead”), and Stevie Wonder (“Dark Star”) he has the knack of dusting off these old gems and breathing new life into them and their makers.
I would say that this album is not only a return to form for Beck, but more of a refinement of the many sounds he is going for these days and on the last few albums since Odelay. If it were a cocktail it would be one part Odelay to one part Sea Change, with a splash of Mutations, making it taste real good. Though the album is not a solid masterpiece, there's more than enough in these fifteen tracks that rock. While featuring great beats and more of Beck’s surreal and fragmented lyrics than ever, it is one of his best albums in recent years.
The white-boy soul rap Beck seems to have perfected is sprinkled plentiful throughout this album from its intro track “Elevator Music” to the funk-fueled first single “Cellphone’s Dead” and straight on down near the end of the album in “1000BPM.” What I find refreshing about Beck is that with every album he puts out, he seems to keep challenging his creativity and pushing himself in new directions. Working with producer Nigel Godrich again definitely helps. The man knows what buttons to push to get the most out of Beck and everyone else he works with. I find a song like "Think I'm in Love," a groove-heavy lullaby to the woman in his life, to be one of the most revealing tracks on the album. The lyrics pretty much say it all; "Think I'm in love/But it makes me kinda nervous to say so." While the hottest track on the album is the Herbie Hancock funk heavy "Cellphone's Dead" with the repeating chorus of "One by one I'll knock you out," set against Beck's own singing rap. It's probably one of his best songs since "Where It's At."
While I'm too much of a music geek to let Beck's blatant use of some of my favorite musicians beats slide, it is something that is not new (Hip-hop anyone?). The songs inherently are some of the most interesting he's put out in a while making this album definitely one worth picking up. If you love Beck you won't be disappointed. |
| DaVe Lipp |
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