Tuesday, April 12th, 2005
Hello kiddy cats. First, I’d like to take a second week in a row to tell people to check out the new Gorillaz video. Second, I’d like to say I’m going to turn 23 in a couple of days. As the second eldest from the Dock, I feel a special responsibility. Actually, that’s a blatant lie. I just wanted to tell you all my birthday is in two days. That being said, on to the music.

Beck takes his album name, Guero, from the spanish word that is equivalent mostly to gringo. For the spanish-challenged, both words are pretty derogatory to those crazy white folk. I suppose this is an effort to relate to his upbringing in LA. So even from the title, it is pretty apparent what Beck is going to be going for on this album.

Guero is the perfect synthesis of Beck’s career. Tinges of all his albums, but especially Sea Change, Mutations, and Midnite Vultures ran rampant through Beck’s latest and I have to say, he manages the diversity without missing a beat. And let’s be honest . . . few artists could go from a very folksy, ballad-driven album in Sea Change and have the Dust Brothers produce his next album without one iota of skepticism. But Beck, being the musical icon he is, not only makes it work, but he doesn’t even really have to rely on his superstardom to give him a get out of jail free card.

There are some particularly stellar tracks, including Qué Onda Guero, Girl, Hell Yes, Black Tambourine, and Scarecrow really jumping out at me. Hell Yes especially is the kind of song you want to turn up really, really loud and feel the beat pulsing through you. It helps me pretend that I have rhythm. Girl has a quirky opening that I absolutely love before opening into a catchy little song. Black Tambourine has a pretty neat video that is a bit gimmicky but definitely worth a viewing.

However, for all the good that Beck does on this album, there is one huge disappointment and its name is E-pro. E-pro is a terrible song. It’s worth listening to once and that’s it. I admit to being quite perplexed why he chose this as a single. The song goes nowhere and is, at best, a mindless dance song, although the video is pretty darn cool.

Keeping in E-pro in mind, I’d have to say as a whole, the entire album can sometimes have a very routine feel, making it pretty disappointing overall. There are some great tracks and I wouldn’t go as far to say that Beck put some filler tracks for the rest of the album, but some songs certainly don’t match up. Still, Beck’s voice is one of the most unique in the business and it really can save about any song. I’d have to say that Beck just kinda put his mind in autodrive by working with familiarity (Dust Brothers), giving a very listenable album, but not terribly inventive album. And as one last caveat, Beck will be judged pretty hard because of the incredible quality of his previous efforts so everybody should keep that in mind too. It just seems apparent Beck has other things on his mind (like his new son and wife) so there is nothing groundbreaking in this album.

Guero is probably one of those albums you could have burned for you by that one friend everyone has who is obsessed with Beck and you wouldn’t really miss anything vital. That superfan may even have the British import version, which has 2 extra tracks. If so, send those tracks my way . . . I’d love to hear them. Have a nice week all.

Beck - Guero

-patrick