Global Times

FINALLY SET FREE

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If there’s a word to sum up Beck’s musical style, it is eclecticis­m. Over two decades he has become an alternativ­e rock icon by swerving among genres, from folk to hip-hop to the mariachi tunes he heard in the streets of Los Angeles.

Yet his underlying thread was irony. Besides two albums that made pit-stops for somber self-reflection, Beck has flummoxed three generation­s of listeners with fantastica­l wordplay, creating a lyrical universe in which Satan gave him (at separate times) a taco and a haircut.

For his 10th studio album, Colors, released on Friday, Beck switched gears again. But this time, he has stitched together the closest he has come to a straightfo­rward pop album.

Colors is Beck’s follow-up to 2014’s Morning Phase, one of his career’s two melancholi­c turns. Morning Phase won the Grammy for Album of the Year, perplexing Beck as well as much of the music industry as he faced much better-selling artists including Beyonce.

While Morning Phase was strippedba­ck and lonesome, Colors, true to its name, is about vividness. And the 47-yearold Beck feels liberated.

“I’m so free!” Beck exclaims in a song of the same name in a theme that comes up repeatedly on Colors.

“The way that I walk is up to me now,” he explains.

Beck’s poetic surrealism has not completely vanished. He still sings of cruising the city “in the typical noise with the suntan ellipse” and spotting the “girl in a bikini with a Lamborghin­i Shih Tzu.”

But the Beck of Colors is one of euphoria rather than irony. “It’s like, wow! It’s like, right now!” he sings on “Wow.”

If not always with his lyricism, Beck on Colors keeps his complexity as a composer. The pop production is packed with multiple layers, with serpentine countermel­odies and seamless transition­s among stylistic influences.

“I’m So Free” opens with a pop beat before an anthemic chorus that explodes with Nirvana-like guitars.

“Dear Life” builds off a jazzy piano melody before more textured pop rhythms. The title track on Colors brings together a forest of synthpop effects, while “Wow” is driven by a gritty trap beat.

Beck’s closest-sounding previous venture was 1999’s Midnite Vultures, a playful adaptation of Prince-inspired funk that had marked his follow-up to Odelay, the album that defined his quirkiness and made him a hipster hero.

Beck had announced that his latest album would come out in October 2016, but held Colors for a full year without explanatio­n.

He crafted Colors with Greg Kurstin, who has become one of the music industry’s most sought-after producers for his bold, full-bodied sound and who most famously co-wrote Adele’s massive hit ballad “Hello.”

The Grammy-winning Beck not only sounds more accessible on Colors,”he sounds content.

What exactly does he want? He answers on the album, “Just wanna stay up all night with you.”

 ?? Photo: IC ?? Beck
Photo: IC Beck

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