Beck on track
Back in junior college when we were like 17, we used to have this class in the morning conducted by two students from the class and they could talk about whatever they wanted. So me and a mate talked about music and categorising everything from classical to pop to rock to hip-hop to industrial and garage etc, making linkages and dropping names and influences to tie up this realm of music from era to era like the fanboys that we were.
Anyway, we summed it up by saying everything could fall into a four letter word ending with the letters ck; BECK. I first heard of him like most other people from that song. Then he had that brilliant album out with the jumping mop dog on the cover. More recently, he had a coupla not so good records before landing himself as a mellow guy with the recent Sea Change. His latest though is pretty cool. Guero has been out for a while now, but I'm finding it more often on my iPod. I especially love the hip-hoppy track, Hell Yes.
Incidentally that track has got this brilliant video by Garth Jennings featuring some pretty cool robots from Sony doing a geisha dance. The website itself has also undergone a revamp by none other than Hi-ReS themselves. Check it out full screen. You can watch a few videos including some the older songs like Devil's Haircut.
I was probably a bit off the mark with my statement to my dumbfounded class back in '97. (most of them couldn't be bothered with the trash I listened to anyway...) Beck certainly isn't the be all and end all to music but he's certainly a quaint little disturbing blip that catches your ear.
