Guero

by

Beck

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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.

As someone who has long been hoping for Beck to return to his trippy energetic sound of "Mellow Gold" and "Odelay," I can only say that this CD makes me really appreciate the songwriting artistry of his more low-key releases like "Sea Change" and "Mutations."

Maybe he's too old for two turntables and a microphone now. Or maybe he just did such an outstanding job the first time around, it's almost impossible to mine something new from that particular quarry.

I dunno. And in all fairness, "Guero" isn't really that *bad*. There are plenty of songs that are probably catchy enough, if they catch you in the right frame of mind. For me, the highlight is the closing track, "Emergency Exit". It almost feels like, whew, we've made it to the end of this (obligatory-throwback) album, now we can exhale and loosen up with some sweet slide guitar.