Guest Sibling Review: Beck's "The Information"

My brother sent me his view of Beck's new CD, and it was really good, so I thought I'd post it here. I hope he keeps reviewing music for the blog here, because he's a lot better at it than I am. He's got more than 4 adjectives to describe the sonic qualities of rock songs, for starters. Anyway, here's Jon...

When Beck was my age, he had just scored his first big U.S. hit, and with its play on Top 40 radio, exposed to mainstream America exactly what was so "alternative" about Alternative Rock. Twelve years down the line, we forget that Beck achieved fame with a song that blended old-school hip-hop, grunge, and the most generic of late 80s drum beats. It was a kitsch song, a radio surprise, the "She Don't Use Jelly" or "Tubthumping" of its moment in time. This, of course, was before he introduced the dance party and the freak-folk mixing into rock and roll, several years before O.K. Computer, mind you.

Now, we all know what to expect from Beck, which may be his Achilles heel. Guero, while pleasant enough, was essentially the adult contemporary version of Odelay. It was the first album in his career not to surprise his audience with a new sonic direction.

Thankfully, he has now given us The Information. More than a small step, but less than a giant leap, The Information boasts fifteen new songs, providing the best of his middle-aged sensibilities, and still keeping enough ambition to claim a seat at the modern electronic round table.



Opener "Elevator Music" sets the tone high with significant bleeps and blorps, and an acoustic guitar hammering in the background that will make any 90s Beck-ite yearn nostalgically for "Lord Only Knows".

It's effective though, and Nigel Godrich's lush production is used for even better purpose here than on Sea Change, taking full advantage of Beck's dance grooves, which ultimately suits him better than the metacognitive drifter of 2002.

In "Elevator Music", he seems to have absorbed the mediocre response to Guero and references his middle-aged persona. "I shake a leg on the ground/Like an epileptic battery man/I'm making my move/Lettin' loose like a belt/Little worse for wear/But I'm wearing it well".

He fires on all cylindars with "Cellphone's Dead", an infectious dance/rap freak-out that comes about as close to mixin bizness with leather as we can expect from Beck in 2006. It hits exactly where it needs to, and although he doesn't quite turn the amps up to 11, "Cellphone's Dead" is easily his most purely danceable track since "Pressure Zone".

"1000 Bpm" is the biggest surprise here. The kitchen sink itself gets thrown into the mix as Beck finally verbalizes his long-standing grudge against "electronic actors" and "digital food malls". Who says the man can't get political? Another album highlight, "We Dance Alone," picks things up after the moderate drone of "Dark Star", which doesn't really achieve its potential until the old-school harmonica solo two minutes in. "We Dance Alone" combines danceable beats with a pretty smooth, melodic chorus, and brings out some career reflection as well.

With "Thought I saw a ghost/But it might have been me/Might have been the world/That was moving too fast/Caught up in the future/That was coming to pass," Beck accepts his place in the modern experimental canon. He might not be able to write his will on a three-dollar bill or break his face on the sweet sunshine anymore, but he can still make the youngins groove with aplomb.

"The Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton" closes the album on notes both familiar and foreign. The opening two formations are a respectable six minutes of mega-produced electronica with a chorus that sounds like it was fed through the Calexico Machine. The Exoskeleton formation involves Beck, Spike Jonze, and Dave Eggers talking about how music changes depending on your mood and what a perfect album in a spaceship might sound like.

Mmkay. Is it very profound? Not really. However, as unexpected a denouement as it is, it isn't exactly an experimental blunder, nor does it tarnish what is otherwise Beck's most solid album since the 1990s. He's not my age anymore, but after hearing "The Information", I'll wager Beck is still as "with it", culturally, as ever, and might still have several worthwhile groove boxes up his sleeve, along with the maggot and the parking violation.