Customer Reviews

Guero

5 star:		(154)
4 star:		(75)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Beck is one of the musicians that you can really call an artist -- he grows, experiments, and works tirelessly on... whatever he's doing next. "Guero" (meaning "white boy") is a glorious, fun album that runs the gamut from distortion rock to Latin hip-hop. It's like a glorious musical collage.

It kicks off with the funky, distorted "e-Pro," which seems to hint at the style and attitude of Beck's "Midnight Vultures." From there he slips effortlessly into steady rock'n'roll set with electronica flourishes, some blues, country, a dash of funk, and a bit of retro pop. A little of this, a little of that, mix and bake at four hundred degrees.

However, Beck seems to try to give "Guero" a Latin flavor to match the title: in one song he raps in Spanish, while he gives a bossa nova flavor to "Missing." There's mentions of mariachi bands, Spanglish and Latin guitars. With that new influence, he does a nearly perfect job of expanding his talents, trying out new tricks and tunes while keeping one foot in the territory of his past albums.

Beck has done it all: He's been a folkie, a melancholy lover, a rocker, and a dancefloor weirdo. Now -- perhaps because of his marriage and baby -- he seems comfortable as a musician, dipping back to his previous albums and his childhood in East L.A. The result is one of the freshest albums that he has made in years.

Given the dozen or so musical styles that get thrown into the mix here, it wouldn't have been surprising if "Guero" had ended up sounding choppy. But startlingly, it doesn't. Instead, the bits of Latin music, funk and rock keep the wildly different songs linked together, like a colorful but fragmented painting that is held together with bright scotch tape.

Not that marriage and daddyhood have changed Beck's pensive, melancholy style. His downbeat songwriting sits quietly in that place between self-pity and self-examination: In one song, he laments that "The sun burned a hole in my roof/I can't seem to fix it/And I hope rain doesn't come/Wash me down the gutter." Interpret it as you will.

Beck is still in fine form in "Guero," utilizing plenty of musical styles to create one of the best indierock albums of the year so far. This "white boy" knows exactly where he's going.

People who have been listening to Beck for the past ten years know that Beck's albums tend to stand on their own individually, each one sounding thematically/tonally different than the one that preceded it. The reviews here evidence this. Despite these different themes and tones, Beck's songs are always decidedly "Beck sounding," regardless of whether you are listening to a ballad from Sea Change/Mutations, or a high-paced, beat driven song from Odelay/Midnight Vultures. In other words, the albums are all united by a difficult-to-describe, but very recognizable, "Beck sound," regardless of whether that sound is manifesting itself in the form of jazz/funk/electronica, hip-hop, pop-folk, country, or some other genre of music. This album fits perfectly with its pedigree. All of the songs on Guero are decidedly Beck sounding. It doesn't sound more like Odelay than it does like Sea Change. It doesn't sound more like Mutations than it does like Midnight Vultures. Rather, it sounds as if Beck recorded this new album in order to capture the subtle similarities that unite all of his prior works. Guero combines the best aspects of all of Beck's prior works, and it stands as Beck's smart response to the people who like to harp on the differences between them. Clearly, Beck is a smart man. If you like his prior work, you should enjoy this album just as much as you enjoyed all of his previous ones.

Once again, everyone's favorite funky Scientologist bares a slice of his soul for all to see, but only through a kaleidoscope of electronic spatters and freestyle lyrics, and to rather mixed response. Many of Beck's loyal fans have complained that there is nothing original on this album, that each song is only a rehashing of a higher-quality past work. But in my opinion, Guero is one of Beck's most subtly crafted, enjoyable works to date.

I really recommend this album to anyone who's heard a bit of this musical mastermind and would like to get an idea of what he's all about. Those previously mentioned loyal fans lament that this CD is like a compressed version of all past albums, but hey, what's wrong with that? Guero would be a delightful shot of flavor to any extensive collection or a great introduction to Beck's eclectic talent.

Guero could very well be a soundtrack to anyone's day. It runs the gamut from...
... bass-driven and consistent (E-Pro, Black Tambourine).
...to lofty and electronic (Missing, Earthquake Weather, Broken Drum, Emergency Exit).
...to delightfully upbeat (Rental Car includes a random Bambi-inspired la-la-la chorus, and Girl's video-game-love-on-the-beach quality makes up for the vaguely sadistic lyrics).
... to all attitude (shadowy Hell Yes is like a rusty robotic porn groove, Que' Onda Guero mixes car horns "honking like a mariachi band" with Spanglish shoutdowns, Go It Alone is simple but driving)
... to Farewell Ride, with its understated lyrics about "two white horses in a line," bone-jangling guitar and antihero tone, is probably one of Beck's best songs to date.
... to Missing and Scarecrow, which don't exactly meet the craziness standards you normally expect from Beck, but they are also very good and maintain the album's consistency.

In short, after releases like the fun, raunchy but insincere Midnite Vultures and the poignant but rather dull Sea Change, Beck has finally found a delightful middle ground. His knack for genre disdain shines through in his techno-folk-freak instrumentals, but his lyrics are toned down just enough to give each song a definite theme, without sacrificing the bit of insanity we've all come to love and expect. This CD is a definite gem and truly has something for everyone who's not afraid of something that's a little genius, a little funky, and a whole lotta awesome.

"Armageddon will be a full on nuclear war between Brookstone and The Sharper Image." - Beck, the Hiro Ballroom of New York's Maritime Hotel, April 19th, 2005

Recently, scores of badly written and poorly imagined articles have materialized on the subject of Beck Hansen. Every couple years, Beck releases a new album and our music critics, eager to meet deadlines, invoke time-tested sound bites and clichés to demonstrate a supposed awareness of the artist's work. "Eclectic," "ironic," "pastiche," and "postmodern," are four words any assumed expert can safely get away with to describe Beck's music.

Is Beck returning to his Odelay roots? (One of the Big questions asked in your standard review). Because the Dust Brothers produced Beck's new album Guero, there's nothing wrong with critics making comparisons to the other Beck/Dust Brothers creation, 1996's Odelay. Unfortunately, the occasion paved the way for many pseudo-discoveries. For instance, several tone deaf and indolent reviews - no doubt mimicking one another - claim Guero's opening song "E-Pro" sounds just like "Devil's Haircut" from Odelay. While others say "E-Pro" sounds just like "Novocaine" from Odelay. So...which is it? Surely it cannot be both, as "Devil's Haircut" and "Novocaine" do not sound alike. It leads to the inevitable conclusion: "E-Pro," a uniquely weird tune cluttered with a chorus of "na na/na na nas" and co-written by the Beastie Boys, sounds like neither Odelay track.

In fact, after listening to this album for almost a month now, I feel safe writing that Guero does not sound anymore like Odelay than it does Mutations, just as it does not sound any more like Midnite Vultures as it does Sea Change. What is notable is that Guero, in many ways, brings together many of the complexities which superficially differentiate all the other albums.

The lack of time and thought put into a timed review often leads to mischaracterization. Proving yet again that it ought to stick to hilarious parodies, The Onion (in it's A.V. club) thinks Beck, at the end of the song "Que Onda Guero" is "making fun of easy targets" when we hear the names of Michael Bolton and Yanni shouted out in the backdrop. The poor reviewer in question, Keith Phipps, is confused. If he bothered to conduct a little research on Beck's bio, he would've known Beck grew up in a Latino neighborhood in East L.A. and was one of the only white kids at his school. The song "Que Onda Guero" (roughly "where are you going, white boy?") portrays the atmosphere in which Beck was teased - as a goofy-looking, guitar playing minority walking down the street. In between the Bolton and Yanni references, we also hear the words "James Joyce" (conveniently ignored by Phipps) uttered. The originator of Ulysses must be another one of Beck's easy targets...or not.

We also hear a Latino man asking, "What's up Guero? Have you been working out? Been doing push-ups?" And these jeers are accompanied by random references to "mullets" and a "ceramics class" - all of which make clear what the song is actually about. But Phipps is desperate to earn his paycheck somehow, while covering up for the fact that he does not know what he's talking about, as again shown in his trenchant conclusion of Guero: "It sounds okay, sometimes even better than okay, but it doesn't stir much passion, unlike even the most irony-entrenched Beck albums of the past." Thanks for the tip, Kev.

A better question might have been: is Beck still bitter from those experiences? The song doesn't feel as though he is, and certainly Beck has long embraced Latino culture - his many Spanish lyrics are not employed with any impish intent. "Que Onda Guero" is an impressionistic stroll through the very neighborhood he grew up in. "See the vegetable man in the vegetable van with a horn that's honking like a mariachi band," Beck raps to get things started. Upbeat, layered music bounces along while Beck observes things like, "TJ cowboys...sleeping in the sidewalk with a burger king crown" and "Guatemalan soccer ball instant replays."

In fact, it's the only track on Guero where both the music and lyrics carry an authentically fun and playful rhythm. Just about every other song stresses death and/or despair as its motivating theme. In track 3, "Girl," Beck first seduces, then kills an unsuspecting female. He spots her, "walking crooked down the beach/she spits on the sand where the bones are bleaching," and thinks, "I know I'm gonna steal her eye/she doesn't even know what's wrong/and I know I'm gonna make her die/take her where her soul belongs."

But these harrowing lyrics are couched behind endlessly catchy, swinging pop music, and also interspersed with a dramatic chorus refrain, "My (something) Girl!" It's the one song non-Beck-fans will like because of it's feel-good, ear candy pose. Another quibble though: many reviewers simply assume Beck sings "My Summer Girl!" in the chorus despite the lyrics on the sleeve which read only, "my...girl" - leaving the line open for interpretation. The missed lyric sounds more like "sonar" or "sun-eyed" to me and the truth is almost certainly more mysterious - since the word was deliberately deleted out - than the reviewers would have it.

After "Girl," the album only becomes darker. Beck repeatedly hits upon his now familiar themes of emptiness, not being able to pay rent (success has evidently done nothing to vanquish this fear), romantic obsessions ("I prayed/heaven today/would bring it's hammer down on me/and pound you/out of my head/I can't think with you in it"). But mostly it is the concept of death which defines Guero: "sharks smell the blood that I'm bleeding," "crows are pulling at my clothes," "two white horses in a line/carrying me to my burying ground" - and that's a fairly random sampling.

None of this, of course, is entirely new for Beck (who long ago sang, "I know, I know, it's the positive people running from their time, looking for some feeling") - just one more foot deeper in the grave. But with previous albums (save Sea Change) there was a clearer attempt to mix offbeat humor in with the grimness: "I was sitting at home cooking up a steak/Satan came down dressed like a snake/well he called my name as I turned up the flame and then I realized I was out of mayonnaise...Yeah, don't go throwing no coupons on my grave/don't go carving no happy face on tombstone," declares Beck on 1994's Stereopathetic Soulmanure.

Even "Hell Yes," the only techno/hip-hop song, eschews the overt satire of its cousins on 1999's Midnite Vultures (most obviously "Hollywood Freaks" which begins, "Hot milk/mmm...tweak my nipple/champagne and ripple/shamans go cripple/my sales go triple") and leaves us with not only random, but a seemingly stainless collection of images: "Looking for my place on assembly lines/fake prizes risin'/out of the bombholes." But there is a sort of understated, brilliance to this funk track, more easily appreciated after several listenings. It effortlessly encapsulates almost everything he was attempting on Midnite Vultures. "Duck don't look now company missiles/power is raunchy/rent-a-cops are watching" or my favorite, "perfunctory idols rewriting their bibles...lives in white out/turn the lights out/fax machine anthems/get your damn hands up!"

Legend has it Beck used to bust up an answering machine onstage, immediately after singing a song about, well, an answering machine. I wonder if the fax machine has now replaced the answering one in Beck's milieu? Beck is preoccupied, not only with death, but with machines of all sorts, gadgets, robots and computers. Each album features multiple experiments with makeshift instruments and obscure technologies.

However, the "mature" Beck is, in most senses, now committed to more traditional song crafting. The psychedelic primal screaming and musical junkyard cacophony of earlier albums (elements that were appealing partly because of their un-musicality) have been almost entirely purged. This is understandable. However, his continued obsessions with death, depression and damnation are not as easily comprehensible. The candid, lonely music of Sea Change was written after Beck found out his years-long girlfriend had been cheating on him. Fine. But Beck is married now, with a kid. Shouldn't he finally be happy, you might ask? (Especially if it's true he has become an adherent of the positivist cult Scientology. His wife has, for certain; the book is still out on Beck himself, but Scientology seems like the sort of "religion" which demands both partners participate. How else could Kelly Preston, for instance, be able to stay with the insufferable John Travolta?). Well, either way, I'm glad he is not "happy." It's nice to see that ostensible contentment has not made Beck complacent, or any less interesting or hungry than he was during his drug-influenced, poverty-stricken youth.

Overall, how does Guero rate within the oeuvre? For me, as with most good things in life, it depends on timing and mood. One day I might prefer Mellow Gold, the next Mutations, so it's premature, if not entirely the wrong question to even ask. However, at this moment, it strikes me as Beck's most compelling and gripping work to date.

(Standout tracks include the aforementioned "Que Onda Guero," "Girl" and "Hell Yes." Other notables: the magnificently bleak "Farewell Ride," the breakup song, "Broken Drum," (chilling, played live) and the hypnotic "Rental Car," which is perhaps the grandest of the whole lot).

well, is this the greatest album? is it the worst album. bottom line, who the hell cares. this is great album for listening. good in the car, good around the house, good for going out at night, good for chillin solo. stop judging so heavily - what is this, rolling stone? just enjoy the album, it's a great listen, for beck fans or not. that's saying a lot. this album crosses boundaries, and everyone will at least be able to tune into at least three songs on this album and enjoy. totally worth 15 bucks, for fans or not. is beck a great live show? who the f**k cares, this is about the album, and it's a good one. takes about 2 listens to fall in love with, but its' like an old pair of jeans at that point. not trying to impress, but always comfortable.

Alright, alright. We can all get over ourselves now. After months of pointing the Salem-witch-hunt-like finger at Beck and enceremoniously saying that his career has come to a dead stop, I think we need to listen to this album. Because the fact is that if any other upstart band or artist came out of nowhere and produced Guero, we would be hailing them as surefire Messiahs. They would be plastered all over every magazine, poster, t-shirt and record store and would win the Mercury and/or Shortlist prizes before the award ceremony could be put on.

This isn't Beck's best album. But does that really matter? That's like criticizing Abbey Road for not being as good as Sergeant Pepper's. The fact of the matter is we have a truly genious artist (Beck) producing a really great, fun, listenable-yet-challenging and completely original album (Guero) that can only be classified in one genre: "Beck music".

But, "Gasp!" you say. "He isn't creating a wildly new aesthetic and changing the music scene singlehandedly!". "Oh no!" you cry, "Some songs teeter on, dare I proclaim, Minimalism! THE SKY IS FALLING!"

Get off it. This record is just one of the myriad of exciting, buzz-worthy, and unique albums to be released so far this year, so for god sakes, stop debating and BUY THIS ALBUM! And then do me a favour. Sing along to the "na na na" chorus. All three of them. Bask in their carefree glory, and hear them almost speak to you. Do you know what they're saying?

"Forget expectations. Put on some Beck. Be happy."

Can we really blame Beck for sounding a little overrehearsed on his newest album? His characteristic debonair dilapidation comes so easily to him that no one bats an eye when he sings about falling in love with a girl with a "black tongue tied round the roses." Is his avant-garde sense of music and lyrics completely natural to him? Well, as Sea Change's startlingly cliché and sonically dreary honesty proves, no. Even Mellow Gold started out as an acoustic album that the record labeled called "boooring", part of the reason why it's so sloppy in inventing Beck's stunning unnamable genre. Alright, alright - for once in Beck's fickle career he's showing himself to be just a little spineless, and I have no doubt that he shat this album out not just to prove to himself that he could but also for the feeding frenzy of the masses. That's not to say there's any shame in liking this album. Beck is simply a brilliant musician, and Guero is only disappointing if we're looking for another reason to call Beck a "great" artist. Look at the album without all that nonsense, and it's one of the year's triumphs.

Reviewers everywhere were affronted that Beck wasn't pioneering the way he used to. Peter Hepburn of the (usually) great review site cokemachineglow.com summarized his terrible score by saying, "If this record had come out in '94 it would have been groundbreaking. '98 and it would have been good. But it's '05 now, and there aren't many reasons to be impressed. At least Sea Change was something new." But to me, this is missing the point. I've recently come to terms with a very subtle distinction between greatness and goodness that I don't know most music listeners accept. The best way to characterize this spectrum is with the New Pornographers and Radiohead, both of which most people will enjoy if they listen to it, but for completely different reasons. Radiohead has become almost unanimously considered the greatest band of our time for managing to keep a cap on their songwriting while venturing along the rocky path of genre exploration. Meanwhile, in just the past five years, the New Pornographers have churned out three essentially impeccable collections of songs that have sit still and always pleased, never startled. Your average Joe on the street will be more impressed with a New Pornographers album alone than Kid A. But what, I ask you, is the New Pornographers' story? It's nice music, and it's impressive that they're so prolific, but Radiohead took the path less traveled and clambered through genres, taking us by surprise again and again, just like (dare I make the comparison) the Beatles did forty years ago. The Bends is a masterpiece, but lord knows if Radiohead had matched it perfectly four more times, they wouldn't be remembered like we all know they will be now.

This isn't as much of a digression as it might seem. It's no wonder reviewers loved Sea Change despite its gloominess, weak songwriting and auditory emptiness: Beck could do more than one thing! So I'll make the counterintuitive statement that Sea Change was a weak album that made Beck greater, and Guero is an excellent album that reveals Beck as just a little more stagnant than we're accustomed to. He's trying to recreate his best moments, and he does a damn good job. Hepburn's quote implies that Odelay can only be appreciated for its influence, but like all great albums, everyone knows that is not true. I try to look at albums independent of their times, and several Beatles albums remain excellent in my eyes, if not as many as in those of professional critics. Odelay is Beck's Graceland; it doesn't matter which era of his career you prefer, the artistic peak he hit during that time makes it almost undeniably his best album. And Guero is all but a carbon copy of Odelay. Well, almost.

Although the Dust Brothers return to produce it, the production on Guero is distinctly more conservative and crisp. Even if you take virtual mirror openers "E-Pro" and "Devil's Haircut" you find the latter did just a slightly better job maintaining interest by tweaking the noises and instrumentation on repeated parts. Even though they follow the pop structure designed to ideally grab the listener, the songs on Guero lack the full extent of climax that one sees on Odelay. The songs are also more accessible and radio-friendly; gone are the electronic freakouts and cacophonous slaps in the face of Odelay. This was hardly necessary - doesn't everyone still consider "Where Its At" one of the staple songs of the 90's despite little touches like the high pitched beep in time during the second chorus? I think it's safe to say that the album is also less genre-defying. It seemed like every song on Odelay had a country-soaked guitar riff repeated such that the music buff was relieved of instinctual shame, organs in odd keys going through arpeggios, utterly fascinating percussion, or (most often) some combination of the three. This isn't to say Guero's production is less complex, it just takes innovations in sips rather than gulps. Each of the above appears on the album ("Broken Drum," "Farewell Ride," "Rental Car," respectively) mixed in with many more traditional techniques, so each song claims maybe one or two unique types of sound as its own rather than Odelay's barrage of the same overwhelming combinations. So Guero pulls in the reins on the base sound, but still reaches as far in some ways as Odelay ever did.

If it sounds like I'm not making any reference to songwriting, it's because there isn't all that much to say. The songs are as catchy as anything on its grandfather, and it might even be said that because the production insanity and grit is toned down, they can stick in the listener's brain even more effectively. From the opening stretch of songs it tugs at the mind that Beck must just be cashing in his best songs early, but really, the songwriting is remarkably consistent, and right up through the last track you're smiling and shaking your head wondering how Beck Hansen does it.

Nothing like a set of negative criticisms of a good album from the most elite review sites and magazines to make me question if that's really the direction I want to be headed. It makes sense, of course, that when you go through as many CDs as they do, you probably don't look at many of the things that immediately leap out at the common listener, like consistently excellent songwriting, and instead look at what conventions its destroying and what its ultimate significance will be. But in the context of normal people with an interest in music, I'd say don't pass up the opportunity to hear an album with which only the cynical are unimpressed.

A-

Beck is back to having a good time with this record and he's been sweet enough to let the rest of us get down and have a good time with him.

E-pro kicks off this gem with a grinding guitar riff over an old school Beastie Boy beat, finding its way into that place in your mind that is responsible for getting songs "stuck in your head." I've had this one in my head for days, and I'm not complaining. But that's just the appetizer. The rest of the album brings us some warm mellow tracks as well as some hip-hop like Hell Yes and Que Onda Guero, the latter having the fattest sounds I've heard since Cypress Hill's Black Sunday.

Beck's voice has matured since the last decade and sounds similar here to how it does on 2002's Sea Change, just in a more upbeat manner. Odelay comes to mind because of the producing team of the Dust Brothers, but this go around they've ditched the lo-fi and constructed a colorful palette of sounds glossed over with a fine production finish to tickle your ears. Also on board is Tony Hoffer, who was responsible for much of the work on Midnite Vultures and many of those fun B-sides we've been listening to between albums.

To put it simply, if you are a Beck fan, you should have no problem whatsoever with this album. If you are new to Beck, but truly love music, you will also have no problem whatsoever with this album. I cannot say enough good things about this music. Is it possible this may become my new favorite Beck album? Yes, but if not, it will at least be a close tie. Spring has returned and so has Beck. Buy this album, grab your boom box and go dance, skate, surf or go on a picnic. It doesn't matter what you do, just go out there and have a good time.

I was always an iffy fan of Beck. Through the years I had always heard about the good music he made but only really hearing whatever had a video or whatever was on the radio.

After reading great reviews about 'Sea Change' I convinced my girlfriend to buy it...and when this past Christmas came around, she got me "Geuro."

Needless to say we have become quite the Beck fans. I read a review saying that this was "Beck by numbers" and that may be so...but as a newbie fan, I love it.

I have always been a very big fan of variety rock and he is the definition of it. I would suggest this album to anyone.

Before I purchased Beck's newest feature, "Guero," I read through several reviews posted here to help me make my purchasing decision. I got the impression that it was a generally well-received album amongst those who chose not to compare it to other releases. I was hesitant to rush to buy it due to the consistent reviews that claimed that the album is boring, unexplorative or just plain repetitive. I gritted my teeth and bought it anyway hoping that the poor reviews were merely the vented frustrations of jaded fans or non-fans putting their two cents in. I'm glad I stuck to my instincts on this because the album is fantastic. Well, it's four-stars fantastic in my book, but I'm pretty harsh, so those four stars mean a lot. In just a few listens, the album is familiar territory not because it is repetetive and reminiscent of Beck's past work but because it is well-written and full of character of it's own. One early review claimed that three songs feature the chorus "na na na na na na." Granted, two of them do, but not the third. Don't worry, both of those songs are different and the phrase that was quoted was handled stylistically unique for each. Also, none of the songs have the same chords or chord structure as "Devil's Haircuit." The difference is glaringly obvious to me. I'm not a huge Beck fan, so I give the fans their due for venting their frustrations at not getting the album they expected. I, on the other hand, think that this is Beck's best. Give it a try. Go ahead. And, as a bonus, check out "Guerolito." It is a remix album based on the "Guero" album (of course) and although you will not likely care for all of the remixes on the disc the ones you do like will make up for those you don't.