Beck: Guero
2005
Interscope Records
Format I Own it on: Compact Disc
Track Listing: 1. E-Pro 2. Qué Onda Guero 3. Girl 4. Missing 5. Black Tambourine 6. Earthquake Weather 7. Hell Yes 8. Broken Drum 9. Scarecrow 10. Go It Alone 11. Farewell Ride 12. Rental Car 13. Emergency Exit
This record was actually surprising at the time because it was so unsurprising...Prior to this album, you never knew quite what you were getting when you picked up the new Beck album...Would it be retro-funk like "Midnite Vultures"? A suite of sad acoustic songs like "Sea Change"? Or another pop culture junkyard in the sample-heavy mold of "Odelay"? It turns out the answer was "yes."
Beck reunites with the Dust Brothers (whom he had previously worked with on "Odelay") and produces a record that feels a lot like a retrospective of Beck's career up to this point...In most cases you can break this record down track by track and decide which Beck album it should be on....("Missing" should be on "Mutations." "Que Onda Guero" could have been on "Odelay." "Hell Yes" would have fit nicely on "Midnite Vultures" and so on...) but that's diminishing the album's achievement...
After "Sea Change" it would have felt a little weird to "get crazy with the cheez-whiz" again, so Beck mellows his go-to wackiness a bit and gives us the mature version of his previous styles...It feels more rooted in the real world than before...
"I push I pull,
the days go slow.
into a void we filled with death and noise..."
Those lyrics won't exactly liven up your next party, but for some reason they sound just fine next to "Hell Yes!''s feel-good robotic funk...Why? Because "Hell Yes!" is played more straight than "Get Real Paid," for example...
And the final track "Emergency Exit" is probably my favorite Beck song, period.
"Now hold your hand onto the plow
Work your body till the sun goes down
What's left of death is more than fear
Let dust be dust and the good lord near..."
You can practically see Beck wiping the sweat from his brow as a plows a field somewhere...Dusty gospel-folk meets high tech electronica...
It kind of felt that ever since "Odelay" Beck has been avoiding making a proper follow up to that album, and it kind of worked...He excelled in genres and moods that seemed unlikely when he first came onto the scence in the 90's...But it feels like he's really facing his legacy head-on here, imbues it with everything he's learned since and ties it all together with a great big bow...And we got the super poppy "Girl" out of it too, so everybody wins....
This album was later released in a remixed version called "Guerolito"...
I've never heard it...I think I've mentioned before I'm not much of a fan of remix albums...I remember owning the cassette of "Mixed Up" by the Cure but that's the only one I can think of offhand....
For some reason the thought of just taking completed songs and adding a phat beat to them and re-releasing them makes me vaguely ill...Not that I'm saying "Guerolito" should be put in that category...I've never heard it, and I'm sure Beck put a lot more thought and care into it than say, "J to tha L-O! The Remixes."
Y'know...I don't really feel like talking about Beck and remixes today...I'm just going to post a few more random photos from an old photo album I found...
Here's Rotgut doing a badass leap off a trampoline whist rocking out...A
lot of bands like to rock out in their parent's garages, but we would
do it while a car was actively being worked on...We felt it gave the
albums a properly greasy aura...
At one point we were using this photo for an album cover but we ended up not doing it, as I don't think the subject of the photo was too thrilled about it...But I love this picture so much! The flaming speaker brings an inner peace to me that no words can properly convey...
Okay, enough photos for today, if anyone seriously objects to any of the above pictures, just let me know and I'll take them down...Except for that flaming speaker photo...That one is non-negotiable...
Alright, let's check out "Emergency Exit" by Beck...
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