Beck is one of the musicians that you can really call an artist -- he grows, experiments, and works tirelessly on... whatever he's doing next. "Guero" (meaning "white boy") is a glorious, fun album that runs the gamut from distortion rock to Latin hip-hop. It's like a glorious musical collage.

It kicks off with the funky, distorted "e-Pro," which seems to hint at the style and attitude of Beck's "Midnight Vultures." From there he slips effortlessly into steady rock'n'roll set with electronica flourishes, some blues, country, a dash of funk, and a bit of retro pop. A little of this, a little of that, mix and bake at four hundred degrees.

However, Beck seems to try to give "Guero" a Latin flavor to match the title: in one song he raps in Spanish, while he gives a bossa nova flavor to "Missing." There's mentions of mariachi bands, Spanglish and Latin guitars. With that new influence, he does a nearly perfect job of expanding his talents, trying out new tricks and tunes while keeping one foot in the territory of his past albums.

Beck has done it all: He's been a folkie, a melancholy lover, a rocker, and a dancefloor weirdo. Now -- perhaps because of his marriage and baby -- he seems comfortable as a musician, dipping back to his previous albums and his childhood in East L.A. The result is one of the freshest albums that he has made in years.

Given the dozen or so musical styles that get thrown into the mix here, it wouldn't have been surprising if "Guero" had ended up sounding choppy. But startlingly, it doesn't. Instead, the bits of Latin music, funk and rock keep the wildly different songs linked together, like a colorful but fragmented painting that is held together with bright scotch tape.

Not that marriage and daddyhood have changed Beck's pensive, melancholy style. His downbeat songwriting sits quietly in that place between self-pity and self-examination: In one song, he laments that "The sun burned a hole in my roof/I can't seem to fix it/And I hope rain doesn't come/Wash me down the gutter." Interpret it as you will.

Beck is still in fine form in "Guero," utilizing plenty of musical styles to create one of the best indierock albums of the year so far. This "white boy" knows exactly where he's going.

Although Guero on it's own is a highly worthwhile release (I'd

give it 4 stars), the Deluxe version of Guero is amazing...

considering I got it for $15 on Bestbuy.com

First: The extra tracks.

1. Send A Message To Her

This track is a top quality B-side. Deserves to be left off

the original album. Very straightforward, catchy pop. Could

of worked well with the 'Mutations'-era material.

2. Chain Reaction

WOW!!! This is one weird song. A Black Sabbath sample, distorted

vocals, the whole kitchen sink. As a stand-alone song, this is a hardcore

update of the aggressive 'Mellow

Gold'-era material. It definitely would not flow with the

rest of the tracks on 'Guero.' (except maybe E-Pro.)

3. Clap Hands

This is one song that would totally have fit on 'Guero.' The

groovy beat is so catchy, I prefer this to Hell Yes. It sounds

eerily like that "Milkshake" song by Kelis. Best of the extra

songs by far.

As for the remixes, you get very competent reworkings of Girl,

Broken Drum, Missing, and Hell Yes. The remixes of Broken Drum

and Missing are the most creative.

The DVD

I had no technical trouble playing the DVD (as other reviewers

have complained about.) The graphics are well done, but sometimes

tend to resemble an elaborate screensaver you see on

computers. The hard to find bonus videos are a nice treat if

you're patient. The photo gallery feels tacked on, with no audio to accompany it.

My biggest complaint is why the DVD has only the original 13

songs. At least there could have been the remixes on here,

if not the 3 bonus tracks. The remixes would have fit perfectly with the video art.

The sheer quantity of video remixes is stunning. The 5.1 mix sounded very solid as well.

The Book:

The CD/DVD combo comes encased in a white "book" that's about

the size of a DVD case. This format is somewhat awkward for

portability reasons. Along with the printed lyrics, there is

exclusive artwork and photos. This is the most superfluous

aspect of the Deluxe edition. While the artwork and photos

are interesting, they don't justify being packaged in such a

bulky casing. I almost wish they kept the standard CD booklet

format. The "book" idea might have worked for an album like

Sea Change, seems unnecessary here.

All told, the DELUXE Edition is a must have for Beck fans:

the extra songs alone are worth it (the DVD & book are

icing on the cake!)

"Armageddon will be a full on nuclear war between Brookstone and The Sharper Image." - Beck, the Hiro Ballroom of New York's Maritime Hotel, April 19th, 2005

Recently, scores of badly written and poorly imagined articles have materialized on the subject of Beck Hansen. Every couple years, Beck releases a new album and our music critics, eager to meet deadlines, invoke time-tested sound bites and clichés to demonstrate a supposed awareness of the artist's work. "Eclectic," "ironic," "pastiche," and "postmodern," are four words any assumed expert can safely get away with to describe Beck's music.

Is Beck returning to his Odelay roots? (One of the Big questions asked in your standard review). Because the Dust Brothers produced Beck's new album Guero, there's nothing wrong with critics making comparisons to the other Beck/Dust Brothers creation, 1996's Odelay. Unfortunately, the occasion paved the way for many pseudo-discoveries. For instance, several tone deaf and indolent reviews - no doubt mimicking one another - claim Guero's opening song "E-Pro" sounds just like "Devil's Haircut" from Odelay. While others say "E-Pro" sounds just like "Novocaine" from Odelay. So...which is it? Surely it cannot be both, as "Devil's Haircut" and "Novocaine" do not sound alike. It leads to the inevitable conclusion: "E-Pro," a uniquely weird tune cluttered with a chorus of "na na/na na nas" and co-written by the Beastie Boys, sounds like neither Odelay track.

In fact, after listening to this album for almost a month now, I feel safe writing that Guero does not sound anymore like Odelay than it does Mutations, just as it does not sound any more like Midnite Vultures as it does Sea Change. What is notable is that Guero, in many ways, brings together many of the complexities which superficially differentiate all the other albums.

The lack of time and thought put into a timed review often leads to mischaracterization. Proving yet again that it ought to stick to hilarious parodies, The Onion (in it's A.V. club) thinks Beck, at the end of the song "Que Onda Guero" is "making fun of easy targets" when we hear the names of Michael Bolton and Yanni shouted out in the backdrop. The poor reviewer in question, Keith Phipps, is confused. If he bothered to conduct a little research on Beck's bio, he would've known Beck grew up in a Latino neighborhood in East L.A. and was one of the only white kids at his school. The song "Que Onda Guero" (roughly "where are you going, white boy?") portrays the atmosphere in which Beck was teased - as a goofy-looking, guitar playing minority walking down the street. In between the Bolton and Yanni references, we also hear the words "James Joyce" (conveniently ignored by Phipps) uttered. The originator of Ulysses must be another one of Beck's easy targets...or not.

We also hear a Latino man asking, "What's up Guero? Have you been working out? Been doing push-ups?" And these jeers are accompanied by random references to "mullets" and a "ceramics class" - all of which make clear what the song is actually about. But Phipps is desperate to earn his paycheck somehow, while covering up for the fact that he does not know what he's talking about, as again shown in his trenchant conclusion of Guero: "It sounds okay, sometimes even better than okay, but it doesn't stir much passion, unlike even the most irony-entrenched Beck albums of the past." Thanks for the tip, Kev.

A better question might have been: is Beck still bitter from those experiences? The song doesn't feel as though he is, and certainly Beck has long embraced Latino culture - his many Spanish lyrics are not employed with any impish intent. "Que Onda Guero" is an impressionistic stroll through the very neighborhood he grew up in. "See the vegetable man in the vegetable van with a horn that's honking like a mariachi band," Beck raps to get things started. Upbeat, layered music bounces along while Beck observes things like, "TJ cowboys...sleeping in the sidewalk with a burger king crown" and "Guatemalan soccer ball instant replays."

In fact, it's the only track on Guero where both the music and lyrics carry an authentically fun and playful rhythm. Just about every other song stresses death and/or despair as its motivating theme. In track 3, "Girl," Beck first seduces, then kills an unsuspecting female. He spots her, "walking crooked down the beach/she spits on the sand where the bones are bleaching," and thinks, "I know I'm gonna steal her eye/she doesn't even know what's wrong/and I know I'm gonna make her die/take her where her soul belongs."

But these harrowing lyrics are couched behind endlessly catchy, swinging pop music, and also interspersed with a dramatic chorus refrain, "My (something) Girl!" It's the one song non-Beck-fans will like because of it's feel-good, ear candy pose. Another quibble though: many reviewers simply assume Beck sings "My Summer Girl!" in the chorus despite the lyrics on the sleeve which read only, "my...girl" - leaving the line open for interpretation. The missed lyric sounds more like "sonar" or "sun-eyed" to me and the truth is almost certainly more mysterious - since the word was deliberately deleted out - than the reviewers would have it.

After "Girl," the album only becomes darker. Beck repeatedly hits upon his now familiar themes of emptiness, not being able to pay rent (success has evidently done nothing to vanquish this fear), romantic obsessions ("I prayed/heaven today/would bring it's hammer down on me/and pound you/out of my head/I can't think with you in it"). But mostly it is the concept of death which defines Guero: "sharks smell the blood that I'm bleeding," "crows are pulling at my clothes," "two white horses in a line/carrying me to my burying ground" - and that's a fairly random sampling.

None of this, of course, is entirely new for Beck (who long ago sang, "I know, I know, it's the positive people running from their time, looking for some feeling") - just one more foot deeper in the grave. But with previous albums (save Sea Change) there was a clearer attempt to mix offbeat humor in with the grimness: "I was sitting at home cooking up a steak/Satan came down dressed like a snake/well he called my name as I turned up the flame and then I realized I was out of mayonnaise...Yeah, don't go throwing no coupons on my grave/don't go carving no happy face on tombstone," declares Beck on 1994's Stereopathetic Soulmanure.

Even "Hell Yes," the only techno/hip-hop song, eschews the overt satire of its cousins on 1999's Midnite Vultures (most obviously "Hollywood Freaks" which begins, "Hot milk/mmm...tweak my nipple/champagne and ripple/shamans go cripple/my sales go triple") and leaves us with not only random, but a seemingly stainless collection of images: "Looking for my place on assembly lines/fake prizes risin'/out of the bombholes." But there is a sort of understated, brilliance to this funk track, more easily appreciated after several listenings. It effortlessly encapsulates almost everything he was attempting on Midnite Vultures. "Duck don't look now company missiles/power is raunchy/rent-a-cops are watching" or my favorite, "perfunctory idols rewriting their bibles...lives in white out/turn the lights out/fax machine anthems/get your damn hands up!"

Legend has it Beck used to bust up an answering machine onstage, immediately after singing a song about, well, an answering machine. I wonder if the fax machine has now replaced the answering one in Beck's milieu? Beck is preoccupied, not only with death, but with machines of all sorts, gadgets, robots and computers. Each album features multiple experiments with makeshift instruments and obscure technologies.

However, the "mature" Beck is, in most senses, now committed to more traditional song crafting. The psychedelic primal screaming and musical junkyard cacophony of earlier albums (elements that were appealing partly because of their un-musicality) have been almost entirely purged. This is understandable. However, his continued obsessions with death, depression and damnation are not as easily comprehensible. The candid, lonely music of Sea Change was written after Beck found out his years-long girlfriend had been cheating on him. Fine. But Beck is married now, with a kid. Shouldn't he finally be happy, you might ask? (Especially if it's true he has become an adherent of the positivist cult Scientology. His wife has, for certain; the book is still out on Beck himself, but Scientology seems like the sort of "religion" which demands both partners participate. How else could Kelly Preston, for instance, be able to stay with the insufferable John Travolta?). Well, either way, I'm glad he is not "happy." It's nice to see that ostensible contentment has not made Beck complacent, or any less interesting or hungry than he was during his drug-influenced, poverty-stricken youth.

Overall, how does Guero rate within the oeuvre? For me, as with most good things in life, it depends on timing and mood. One day I might prefer Mellow Gold, the next Mutations, so it's premature, if not entirely the wrong question to even ask. However, at this moment, it strikes me as Beck's most compelling and gripping work to date.

(Standout tracks include the aforementioned "Que Onda Guero," "Girl" and "Hell Yes." Other notables: the magnificently bleak "Farewell Ride," the breakup song, "Broken Drum," (chilling, played live) and the hypnotic "Rental Car," which is perhaps the grandest of the whole lot).

This review is primarily about the deluxe packaging and not so much on the cd itself. Hey, it's Beck, and why are you hear if you aren't already pre-disposed to think everything he does is not Genius? The man and his music are chameleons and that is the point. You can't be disappointed that this doesn't sound like Sea Change or that it reminds you of Odelay. That's not the point! Beck is not K-mart packaged music. If you don't get it or are disappointed, keep listening. You will!

That said... I buy deluxe editions. I just feel for my money, that's the way to go. Sometimes I'm disappointed by the extras, but most times not. The extras on this set are a mixed bag for me. If you're on a budget (I should be, but I'm not), there is nothing wrong with buying the basic cd at almost half the price. The expanded CD is the main reason to buy this set. More music is always a reason to buy expanded sets!. The packaging rates a C+ for me with a great 50+ page booklet with "readable" lyrics and great art work (by, who I thought was Henry Darger, but instead is by Marcel Dzama). It's nice not to have to strain your eyes to read Becks'words (and they're actually worth reading!). The case holding the discs however deserves an F. You have to remove both discs if you want to get to the 2nd disc??? This is the 2nd packaging I've seen (the other in the AC/DC set) that is like this and hopefully it is not a trend. Lastly the DVD was a disappointment to me on first view. It did jam up on my Sony DVD player (on track 4 especially), but not my computer, and I could find no fault with the disc. Note to myself and everyone else that's having problems (maybe we need a new DVD player?) Knowing Beck, he used the most state of the art technology on this disc and are players aren't up to it? Just a suggestion. As to the video portion - it's just not for me. I'm either too old, not patient enough or impaired enough to appreciate it. The sound, however (with a 5.1 option) does make me want to try it again.

Overall there is enough extra stuff here to keep any diehard Beck fan happy, whether you buy it for the extra tracks, the DVD, or the art and booklet. However, if you're credit card is max'd and the ATM will only let you take out $10, the basic edition will certainly suffice.

well, is this the greatest album? is it the worst album. bottom line, who the hell cares. this is great album for listening. good in the car, good around the house, good for going out at night, good for chillin solo. stop judging so heavily - what is this, rolling stone? just enjoy the album, it's a great listen, for beck fans or not. that's saying a lot. this album crosses boundaries, and everyone will at least be able to tune into at least three songs on this album and enjoy. totally worth 15 bucks, for fans or not. is beck a great live show? who the f**k cares, this is about the album, and it's a good one. takes about 2 listens to fall in love with, but its' like an old pair of jeans at that point. not trying to impress, but always comfortable.