Word: guero
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...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...
...material, embracing the inglorious lower tiers of pop culture and throwing them into the mix. Some of the electronic ditties, such as that of “Earthquake Weather,” recall the early 1990s childhood aesthetic of Super Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog. At other times Guero moves away from the standard beats and chord progressions of pop music to dabble in non-Western modes and rhythms; “Missing” is to Beck what “Within You, Without You” was for George Harrison on Sgt. Pepper...
...Although Guero is a patchwork of “other” sounds, and never settles on one of its own, to call the album unoriginal is to miss the point. The album further refines Beck’s technique of appropriation-as-aesthetic, and the results are marvelous. Many of Beck’s lyrics deserve the title of poetry, bringing to mind T.S. Eliot’s adage that “immature poets imitate; mature poets steal...
...gimmick that cut outs before it wears too thin, whetting the appetite instead of turning the stomach. The poppy chorus of “BIT RATE VARIATIONS IN B-FLAT (Girl)” can’t fail to please, while “GAMEBOY/HOMEBOY (Que Onda Guero)” finds him once again attempting to rap with typically mixed results...