Beck Hits ‘Escape’

The singer-songwriter hooks up with Pharrell for ‘Hyperspace,’ his new album on escapism

The singer teams up with Pharrell for an adventurous album about escapism.

When Beck first got together with producer Pharrell Williams to craft most of his late-2019 LP, Hyperspace, he discovered they had slightly different ideas about the kind of album they were creating. “I wanted to create something like ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot,’ ” Beck says, referencing the 2004 hit that Pharrell produced for Snoop Dogg that features lyrics like, “G’s to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo.” “I think he was hearing something a little more singer-songwriter-y, though,” Beck clarifies.

They wound up fusing the two worlds, utilizing drum loops along with acoustic guitar and piano. The result is a collection of lush, atmospheric songs. “The more hybrid the music got, the more interesting it became,” says Beck, calling from a road trip across the Italian countryside. “We wanted to veer away from songs that were too introspective and let whatever happened happen.”

It was the polar opposite of the experience that Beck had creating his last album, 2017’s Colors, with producer Greg Kurstin. (Kurstin also co-produced a track on Hyperspace.) “That was an endless process,” says Beck. “It felt like a doctorate-studies program in crafting pop songs. I really wanted to explore and get lost in that. This one was off the cuff.”

Beck first heard Pharrell’s music while working on Midnight Vultures in 1998, and the Neptunes’ futuristic funk influence is felt on that record. But they didn’t start hanging out until 2012, right around the time that the producer was working on “Get Lucky” for Daft Punk and his solo crossover hit “Happy.” They started talking about recording an album, but their busy schedules meant it didn’t start happening until last year, in quick bursts of activity whenever Beck had downtime from his Colors world tour. “Pharrell works on instinct,” says Beck. “There wasn’t even a lot of discussion. We’d automatically get into the work and think, ‘How does this make my body feel?’ ”

Beck kept the lyrics focused on the ways people leave behind day-to-day problems: drugs, money, art, religion. “I thought about this video game I played as a little kid called Asteroids,” he says. “If you were about to die, there was this button you would hit to escape and go somewhere else. I looked up the name of the button, and it was called ‘Hyperspace.’ Each song is coming out of that idea. It ends with ‘Everlasting Nothing,’ which is about the fact that whatever you build for yourself in life, obviously we are all reduced to the same thing at the end. We’re all in this together, no matter what.”

Beck spent the summer playing shows with Cage the Elephant, and he’s got festival dates on the books through the end of the year. Though he’s toured heavily over the past few years and plans to continue, he says he’s unlikely to play one of his classic albums straight through, as many of his peers have done in recent years. “I think if I had a Nevermind or OK Computer or This Is It, I might do something like that,” Beck says. “I’m still looking to make that definitive record.”

“Pharrell works on instinct. We’d automatically think, ‘How does this make my body feel?’ ”