Blowin' Indie Wind Beck Dissappoints with Boring Cliches

Author: Erika Mercer

"Sea Change" is comparable to your family's Christmas tree after all of the lights and ornaments have been removed - bare, bummed out and bland. Of course, it's still beautiful simply as a tree (as trees naturally are), yet in some ways it's too late - you've seen it in all its sparkling, glistening, Christmas glory.
You've seen it twinkle with tinsel and glitter with gaudy wooden Santas, and now it looks relatively, well, unoriginal - just like every other tree out there. On top of that, it's dreadfully naked, and you can't help thinking that it looked much better with all its goofy accessories and clothes on.
Born in 1970 into an artistic family with roots in the bohemian circuit of Los Angeles, Calif., Beck Hansen's early interest in music stemmed from his parents - his father, David Campell, performed as a bluegrass street musician and wrote various string arrangements for rising artists and bands such as "Aerosmith," and his mother, Bibbe Hansen, also worked as an actress and musician.
As a child, Beck became exposed to music as diverse as street hip-hop and Delta blues, folk and guitar rock. He divided his time between living with his parents in L.A., his Presbyterian preacher grandfather in Kansas and his other grandfather, the artist Al Hansen, in Europe.
His later music makes use of this unique jumble of influences - acquired everywhere from quiet, rural churches to bustling urban streets.
At 16, Beck dropped out of high school and moved to New York City to explore the local punk scene and anti-folk movement raging there at the time.
Unable to find his niche, Beck relocated once again to L.A. and began playing gigs at clubs and bars in the area. His first single, "MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack," was conceived while working at a local video store in 1992 and struggling to stay fed and on his feet.
This desperate financial situation inspired his next 1993 single, "Loser." As Beck described, "I was working in a video store doing things like alphabetizing the pornography section for minimum wage."
Produced with the help of hip-hop technician, Karl Stephenson, "Loser" brought Beck out of the "rat infested shed" in which he was living and turned him into the musical success he is today.
Hailed by critics as the "anthem for doomed youth," "Loser" defined Beck as the unexpected savior for that very youth - for the 1990s "slacker generation."
Following the success of "Loser" there ensued a fierce record company battle for Beck, won finally by Geffen Records who, perhaps pityingly and perhaps stupidly, gave Beck allowance to simultaneously release music on other labels if he wished - and he did wish.
During the year of 1994, Beck produced a string of three CDs, each released on a different label: "Mellow Gold" debuted on Geffen Records, "One Foot in the Grave" on K Records and "Stereopathic Soul Manure" on L.A.'s Flipside independent label. Each album was a huge success, speeding up Beck's already fast-paced career.
Baby-faced and goofy, Beck was irresistible to both fans and critics, who praised his distinctive combinations of eclectic genres and witty, outlandish lyrics.
On the song, "Steal My Body Home," off the album, "Mellow Gold," he sang, "I took a leap into the fog / Sleepin' on a hollow log / Now I'm coughin' with no mouth," and nobody cared what it meant because it sounded so cool.
Beck arrested his audience with his quirky and often startlingly funny lyrics and awed them with his ability to successfully incorporate elements of punk, blues, rock, gospel and folk into one song and make it immensely appealing.
Throughout the 1990s, Beck continued to produce a series of albums: "Odelay" debuted in 1996, winning numerous honors including a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 1997. Shortly thereafter, Beck released "Mutations," in 1998 and "Midnite Vultures" in 1999.
His most recent album, "Sea Change," hit record stores last September and stunned fans with its drastic departure from the previous albums' characteristic collage-like assemblage of different genres and sounds.
Though a full orchestra backs Beck throughout the album, "Sea Change" gives the illusion of being an acoustic album and remains, for the most part, slow, downcast and calm.
Unlike much of his earlier work, "Sea Change" is melodic and simple, never straying far from its roots in quiet, gentle and clean folk music. It lacks the idiosyncratic and unpredictable nature of albums such as "Mellow Gold" and instead stays relentlessly downcast and brooding.
Although a masterful and quietly beautiful album on its own, within the scope of Beck's career, "Sea Change" is somewhat too simple, too delicate, too unadorned and too bland.
Compared to his furiously original, thrillingly eccentric earlier work, the album sounds weak - painfully self-conscious and insecure.
In a world already full of many such self-conscious indie artists, Beck, who previously provided a welcomed bit of confidence, enthusiasm and animation, was a sad case to see fall to the dark side.
Who wants to hear Beck drone and weep along with other artists when he's proved that he can do so much more?
Yet drone and weep he does. He replaces comical, nonsensical lyrics such as "we drop lobotomy beats / evaporated meat on the high-tech street" (off the album, "Midnite Vultures") with sappy, unoriginal lyrics: on the song, "Guess I'm Doing Fine," he sings, "It's only lies that I'm living / It's only tears that I'm crying / It's only you that I'm losing / Guess I'm doing fine."
Granted, he had just broken up with his girlfriend - the alleged subject of the album - but seriously, couldn't Beck, with his immense well of talent, have cooked up something better than plain, boring clichÈs to feed his suffering soul?