Word: guero
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Beck Hansen has just established himself as a master of self-adulation. His new album Guero is in many ways a tribute not to his musical forbears, but to his own work of the past dozen years, with a few curve balls thrown in to prove he’s still an artist, not just an anthologist...
Tracks like the opener “E-Pro,” “Qué Onda Guero,” and “Hell Yes” flash back to good old danceable Beck à la Midnite Vultures or Odelay, while the middle of the album is largely an extension of the pendular, string-heavy sound of Sea Change. Since Beck’s previous work has ranged from very good to brilliant, however, these new renditions of older stylistic motifs are far from unwelcome...
Besides, some aspects of Guero are neither self-referential nor culturally referential but brilliantly, confoundingly novel. “Girl,” for example, uses a breezy surf-rock melody to carry the narrative voice of a deranged, possibly homicidal voyeur...
...could be viewed alternatively as a morose grown-up’s take on Alice and Wonderland or a child’s fantastic documentation of life under dictatorship. Normally I find album visuals irrelevant at best, annoying and distracting at worst, but somehow these ghoulishly lovely illustrations complement Guero wonderfully, like marginalia to an illuminated manuscript...
...half-lit world of Guero lies somewhere between the last drink and the first hangover, between the rowdiness of the cantina and the dreaminess of the artist’s studio. In this strange border country, Beck, the “guero,” the white boy, holds court among the ghosts of his previous releases and the dysmorphic specters of cultural miscellany...