Beck - Midnite Vultures

guest review by Todd Fadel

Beck's new album "Midnite Vultures" is creating quite a stir in the music world with its fusion of diverse styles and hearkening back to the days of 70's glam-rock.  No album has taken us through so many different styles and sounds in the past decade, except maybe Beck's own "Odelay". (In the 80's, the only thing that comes close is Prince's "Sign O' The Times".)  With his tongue firmly in his cheek, Beck exaggerates those power pop anthems about meaningless sex-based relationships and has a lot of laughs at that genre, even as he pays tribute to its musical style.

For those of you who have yet to discover Beck's musical prowess, here's a "Beck-primer" from a longtime fan and a musician, Todd Fadel of Portland, OR.

"Beck Hansen is drawn to things that the world finds grotesque, campy, trashy. The irony is that when he spotlights each of these darkened corners of human culture, the world seems to admit liking them, too. Sure, they give the "aw shucks" look while they're loving it, but they love it, nonetheless. "Midnight Vultures", Beck's latest foray into culture voyeurism, is as subtle as (dare I say it) .. a garlic sandwich. But bring it on, we want to look. We need to look, sometimes.

"Exploration and revelation are the driving force of Beck's music. When talking about writing his mega-hit "Loser", he non-chalantly reflects, "when I brought folk and rap together, I knew I was onto something different". The journey he seems to be on is to intertwine and connect every piece of music that has been produced and bring it together in a collage of passion and struggle. But, like many artists in today's culture, Beck seems anchorless. The make-up of the sandy foundations are the memories of what once moved people to passionate ends.

"He has made a very worthy effort to revitalize the dead masses though, acting the crazed lunatic and funky geek for the youngsters and hipsters, and the bleating minstrel for the weathered ones. When all the dust (brothers) settles though, there's a gnawing emptiness.

"I've found myself torn between love and hatred for this man's means, mainly because he's a perfect reflection of my instability. I know I'm not alone.

"Beck's approach is what strikes a chord, more than the product. Sculpture out of trash, reason out of wreckage. This leads to nods in all directions. From the pot-smoking numbies (Mellow Gold) and faux-naïve lo-fi fanatics (One Foot in the Grave), to the hip-hop homies (Odelay) and the wandering poets (Mutations), Beck's congregation is wide-spread and growing.

"It's good that we look. That we groan. Beck's music causes a chain-reaction of self-consciousness that is characteristic of youth culture. Nostalgia is not just a metaphor for a generation without identity, it's the remembrance that something better happened. It's bottled hope, and Beck is shaking the bottle up and letting the carbonation do the rest."        --Todd Fadel