While Beck's earlier work (who can look at Odelay and not say "masterpiece?") was brilliant in a raw way, I think he's gotten more refined and yet has developed more depth over the years. I totally fell in love with Guero and wondered if he could keep the pace going. To my surprise, I like parts of The Information even better. It's more techno, which I like, and yes, darker. What I get out of this CD is a love/hate affair with technology & the alienation it brings to our lives. We can cross the world in seconds thanks to the net, and yet we are more distant, isolating within ourselves. This is a CD for the current day...it's wired, and so are we. And there's no going back.

I felt OK writing a review on release day because Beck was leaking videos and other new tracks on his myspace page for a month or two before. I appreciated that and because of it, I must admit that I cannot remember the last time I was so eager for an album to come out. That being said, I definitely have favorites already. They include:

"Elevator Music" - very danceable tune, should have been the 1st single.

"Soldier Jane" - constant head bobbing, (important for me after Guerolito) definitely has some psychedelic qualities; I like the synths here.

"Dark Star" - I have never done acid, but the media has convinced me it must be something like this. Cool song and by far the best video on the DVD. It is as if Stanley Kubrick directed the video laced to early 80s underground beats. One person commented that Beck resembles Willy Wonka a bit here.

"We Dance Alone" - I just added this one because it caught on with me after a while. This is probably a song that showcases Beck's eclecticism more than any other, many different things going on here.

"No complaints" - Very catchy; one of the most stripped down tracks on the album, perfect for the MP3 player, walking outside. Great lyrics.

"The Information" - The title track has a hard bass beat and is solid overall.

The last song is a montage of a couple different tracks, focusing on change. This album was marketed different from the others; Beck is telling us the music is changing. Example: I went out and bought it rather than downloading this . . . Why?

Partly because of the DVD that comes with the album, partly the releases on myspace. Brilliant marketing focusing more on the album as a package. And I'm still split on rating it vs. Guero. Even though there were some tracks I could do without, (e.g. - Motorcade) when rating this album you have to keep in mind that Beck made a video for every song. Has anyone done that before??? And then NOT charge us a lot for it? At well under $15 here, this is a bargain for an album with 15 tracks and 15 videos on DVD.

I could go on about the stickers, but I won't. Beck has attempted something different and I liked it, hope you do too. Let's watch if the rest of the music industry follows suit.

Though I'd hardly say he's hardly floundering, Beck's last two albums were a bit of a disappointment for me. The gloomy, downbeat songwriting on Sea Change was an interesting and surprising turn, but in the end it seemed like Beck trying to do a Nick Drake impersonation that, while adequate, was no substitute for the real thing, and didn't really play to Beck's strong suits. Guero, on the other hand marked a return to the Beck we all know and love, but it seemed like a retreat, and an attempt to recapture past success. To that effect it worked: Guero sold a lot of copies, and it had a handful of great songs, but many of the songs sounded too much like sideways versions of old Beck songs and it lacked the creative spark Beck is so known for.

Now I still love the guy, but I was slightly apprehensive when I heard his new album was coming so shortly after the last. But my worries were laid to rest upon first listen. This album is everything I've come to love about Beck. It's manages to bring together the atmospherics and songwriting of Mutations and Sea Change and pull them together with the kind of experimental electronica and toe-tapping beats pioneered on Odelay, and in so doing creates a completely new sound that should satisfy fans on both sides.

The album begins suitable with the languid and distant hip hop of Elevator Music. This sets the tone for the album perfectly. This album is layered, and funky, but never high energy. It's the other end of the spectrum from Midnite Vultures with an aloof sounding Beck rhyming over some echoey, eerie, and atmospheric beats. Choirs and cello strings regularly accompany the synthesizers and turntables. Beck evokes a similar funk ennui in Cell Phone's Dead and We Dance Alone, both very strong tracks.

There are pop moments as well, though. Beck puts his freestyle flow aside for the second track, Think I'm In Love, which could be the follow up to last year's Girl. It has an infectious chorus backed by bubbly ivory tickling, and a cello-backed bridge that cements the tracks as pop gold. He follows it up with the even more upbeat Strange Apparition, which evokes shades of Fatboy Slim's Praise You.

The album does sag a bit at the end of the disc. Motorcades tinny racket falls to connect, and the synth cheese of Movie Theme proves too overbearimg. The disc closes with a 10-minute medley of 3 songs, the middle of which is worth listening too and the ending of which comes off as either vapid pot talk or Scientologist proselytizing, I'm not sure which.

But the bottom line is abundantly clear: This is Beck's strongest album in many years, and a far better heir to Odelay than the trying-too-hard Guero. It manages to be a step forward for the artist, while still playing to his strong suits. The production is slick, everything about it is quintessentially Beck, and it doesn't sound like anything else out there. We have a winner.

For a video-starved guy like me, the idea to release a CD with an accompanying DVD that contains a video for every song was sheer brilliance. Truthfully, I'm surprised it took this long for a big-named artist to try something like this. Then again, if anyone has the ingenuity to pull off such an amazing audio/video spectacle on disc(s), Beck is the musician.

I love everything about "The Information," both the CD and the DVD. There's plenty to dance to here, lots of tunes to sing along with, and some much more laid-back fare. In fact, the tail end of the disk becomes a tad more somber and uneven, but the music still kills. "The Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton" reveals itself as murkier music for the diehards at 2 a.m. and counting. Still, it's great stuff until everything dissolves into a mesh of ethereal synth and a few incomprehensible voices meant to confuse; bizarre, to be sure, but also a fitting end to an album so rich in musical depth.

This masterful CD is littered with cool hip-hop dance tracks like "Elevator Music, "1000BPM" and "Nausea," which sit next to songs that mingle hip-hop and pop-rock such as "Think I'm in Love" and "No Complaints," two playful-sounding tunes that make not liking Beck's music impossible. "Strange Apparition" has a lively country-western sound, complete with jumping piano and a suitably weird video to match. Everything on this album is smooth and instantly catchy, often danceable. The dance tracks have that big bass thump, a crisp beat and snappy drums that could get anybody moving. There are also sublime songs like "Soldier Jane" that ooze atmosphere and manage transcendence. Along those lines, "Movie Theme" is an especially moving track, perhaps the best on the album. It has a buzzing, slow-synth groove that is infectious but a little sad. The video is nothing but an electric green haze of Beck's staid face shown in a row, as if a synthetic, twisted cloning went severely bad but left us great music. His voice on the track is hardly above a murmur, making the words barely audible. When he sighs toward the end of the song, you want to sigh along with him, and maybe even shed a tear or two.

Beck's droning voice belies the exciting array of noises that are par for the course within his well-rounded music. And his demeanor onscreen is no less understated than his endearing vocals. The DVD portion of "The Information" is chock-full of colorful low-fi videos (often with smooshy coloring and purposely grainy quality) that feature the calm Beck as the ever-present focus, amid a blur of bizarre men and women of all ethnicities performing a myriad of activities in odd clothing. Few bodily movements are spared in these videos: Kung Fu guys, little girls dancing, bears playing the drums, cars driving by, women exercising, jousting, costumes galore, retro graphics that flash incessantly -- you name it, every type of music-video chic is covered. Beck's sound might be modern, but his video aesthetic is pure retro, from slick 1970s suits, to "keytars," to boom boxes that his minion musicians cradle in their arms. So in a way, Beck pushes boundaries in an equally forward-thinking and nostalgic manner. There's no real theme to his videos, except to behave beautifully free and act weird once "Action!" is shouted. Sometimes people just stand around looking bored, which is cool too. Everything looks like it was filmed in the same house. Beck often has a bored, dazed look about him, but after hearing this CD and seeing his videos, you realize the guy is completely in control of what he's doing. How cool is it that the diverse songs on "The Information" also get a varied set of accompanying videos?

After living with "The Information" for two weeks, I've come to the conclusion that we are now in The Age of Beck II. Beck II is just like Beck I, except that Beck II is largely depressed, humorless and apparently convinced that slicker production can make up for a lack of enthusiasm. Does Beck still want to be a recording artist? Does the job still make him happy, or is he only going through the motions?

If, as some reviewers believe, this is Beck's "Scientology Album," it's pretty clear the "church" isn't making him happy either. He sounds miserable here and unlike on "Sea Change," the misery makes no point and serves no purpose. I don't think he's recovered from whatever inspired "Sea Change" even if he thinks he has. There is NO humor here, just a lot of expert, but ultimately tedious craftsmanship. On "1000 BPM" he briefly uses his hustler voice from "Hollywood Freaks" and all I could think was: "Man, 'Midnight Vultures' was a PARTY. This is a funeral." I mean, what can you say when the most radio-ready track on the album, "Nausea," has a message that basically comes down to: "Life's a bitch and then you die"?

There are some good moments, especially "Elevator Music" and "Cellphone's Dead," which is the only track that really gets the hip-hop/electronica merger that is (apparently) the goal of the album. But after a few listens it's very hard to care about much else here. There is also the standout bad track "Strange Apparition" which I have to believe was recorded while being held at gunpoint by a crazed Dave Matthews fan. Never has Beck sounded less like Beck, though he comes close on the endless final track, which sounds almost exactly like William Orbit in places.

Beck I is my favorite living American recording artist; here's hoping Beck II gets a new therapist and a new producer, in that order.

Oh...and if you haven't heard "Guero," pick up a copy immediately. Though I think Beck II also made "Guero," under the heavy influence of the Dust Brothers he put together an album that is both sophisticated/professional-sounding and lots of fun that gets better every time you hear it. It's no "Odelay" (and despite what 10 million critics have written it doesn't sound ANYTHING like "Odelay") but it is a damn fine record.