Guero

Beck tiene tantos discos con buenas canciones que uno no sabe qué escuchar de él. Luego te pones con uno entero así seguido y lo mismo se hace pesado. Empieza bien con E-Pro. También me guardo Girl y como siempre esto es más bien un 2,5, pero le daremos 3.

I was a big fan of EPro and Girl going in, but never heard the rest of the album before this, and it sounded great.

Beck is so good at putting together an eccentric collection of sounds and making it work. Genuinely love this album, listened to it last night after getting it from the generator and again this morning just for funsies.

I guess Beck eventually grew out of the garage band tinkering and started making bangers like Rental Car. Youpi!!!

Hey, I had no idea this Beck album existed. A lot of this reminds me of his earlier material - indie with little hip-hop flavored sampled bits. Maybe a little more smoothed out.

"Qué Onda Guero" is a little cheesy, but it feels right. This is making me want to listen to actual hip-hop-inflected Mexican music instead, though. "Missing" is atmospheric; I like it a lot. It might be my favorite track on the record? But I also like the song "Farewell Ride," with its interesting cowboyish guitar.

The only thing on here that I didn't really take to was "Earthquake Weather," which sounded like some band from the 70s that I can't remember the name of.

4 stars - I'd listen to it again sometime.

3.07

Beck had a nice arc going. He initially became known for "Loser" which was a radio-foisted throwaway song, a house made of straw. Then came Odelay (I have a soft spot for this album as part of my teenage years), which was well-received critically but also cemented his status as an aloof self-styled witticist type. A couple albums later we were given Sea Change, which was truly brilliant and was marketed as his transformation into a mature, serious artist— but! He immediately pivoted back to this kind of stuff, which, in retrospect, makes Sea Change feel insincere. I suppose Morning Phase was his attempt to relegitimize that persona, but... whatever, I can't be bothered with all this.

Another good album from Beck, although not as fantastic as Sea Change. More of a vibes album rather than one that impacts you, despite kinda continuing the feel of Sea Change, just with a southern/western vibe. Dunno if anything is particularly hitting me from this. Doesn't seem to have the emotional punches that its predecessor had.

Although I do remember E-Pro from playing it in Rock Band 2.

Ultimately though, this feels like an album that could be dropped from the list. Sea Change covers this era of Beck well, and you got Odelay for the 90s stuff. Feeling somewhere between a 3 and 4, but don't think it'll be something I go back to much, so I'll stick with a 3 for now.

I don't know, man. What do you say about Beck? I don't really know how to explain his music, I don't really know *why* it's good, I just know it's damn good. It's weird, the lyrics don't make any damned sense, he's constantly got little snippets of sounds that don't sound like they should work, but they're actually perfect, and the songs are all so catchy.

So this is a Beck album, and although I can't explain why it's awesome, I can simply tell you - it's pretty awesome.

Pretty chill. Maintains a consistent mood without being boring. Flows right along. Not really a banger but good background/hangout music.

Wow, so we go from a sad ballad album with Sea Change to a more sample heavy album with Guero, Beck has quite a lot of range. And yes, i do love this album. The samples here give this album an unbelievable amount of personality but that's not to undermine Beck's singing and his work on the regular instruments because those are all great too. Its just the sampling and the great use of it that really steal the show for me. This really is the best Beck album i have done so far beating out Sea Change.
Best Song: Rental Car
Worst Song: Missing
Side note: The music videos are also incredibly surreal and I love it.

The song with the half Spanish lyric is great and otherwise it's kind of meh

I've already heard the opening track "E-Pro" off the Rock Band 2 video game, and it's still a bop with the crunchy guitarwork over the sampled rhythm section from the Beastie Boys' "So What'cha Want." The rest of Guero continues down this path of alternative rock with hip-hop influences, sample use, and strong beats courtesy of the Dust Brothers. The momentum slows down toward the final two tracks, but overall the album was enjoyable.

Not Beck at his best, but not at his worst either. A few stand out tracks like the Rock Band video game banger "E-Pro" (that glomps on Beastie Boys "So What'cha Want") makes it rise above plenty of other releases, but we're far from peak Beck here, but thats ok.

This felt like Odelay 2 in a bad way.

I've always been weirdly mid on Beck considering how much he checks the boxes for something I'd like. This definitely feels in line with the better stuff like Odelay but still just not exceptionally exciting to me.