Beck

As the title of his 2019 album Hyperspace would imply, 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee and
eight-time Grammy-winner Beck has traveled light years from his emergence as a reluctant generational
spokesperson when “Loser” exploded from a rejected 1992 demo into a ubiquitous 1994 smash. In the
decades since, Beck's singular career has seen him utilize all manners and eras of music, blurring
boundaries and blazing a path into the future while simultaneously foraging through the past.
Surfacing just as the mainstream and alternative rock intersected, no small thanks to his 1994
debut Mellow Gold, Beck quickly confounded expectations with subsequent releases including the lo-fi
folk of One Foot in the Grave. But the album that first cemented Beck’s place in the pantheon was
1996’s multi-platinum Best Alternative Grammy winner Odelay. Touching on all of Beck's obsessions,
Odelay remains a key cultural touchstone from the indelible hooks of "Devil's Haircut” and “The New
Pollution" to the irresistible call and response of the Grammy-winning anthem and live show staple
"Where It's At."
From the world-tripping atmospherics of 1998's Mutations (Beck's second album to win the Best
Alternative Grammy) and the florescent funk of 1999's Midnite Vultures through the somber reflections
of 2002's Sea Change, 2005's platinum tour de force Guero and 2006's sprawling The Information, no
Beck record has ever sounded like its predecessor. In the interim following 2008's acclaimed Danger
Mouse-produced Modern Guilt and the Grammy-nominated standalone single “Timebomb," Beck
eschewed the typical album/tour/repeat grind. Instead, he expanded into multi-media endeavors
including a one-time-only live re-imagining of David Bowie's "Sound and Vision" utilizing 160+ musicians
in a 360-degree audiovisual production, and the equally unprecedented Beck Hansen's Song Reader,
originally released December 2012 by McSweeney’s as 20 songs existing only as individual pieces of
sheet music--complete with full-color original art for each song and a lavishly produced hardcover
carrying case (and since recorded as an actual album by the likes of Jack White, Juanes, Norah Jones,
David Johansen, Beck himself and many others).
Beck's creative tide continued unabated throughout 2013 with three standalone singles released
digitally and on 12-inch vinyl ("Defriended," "I Won't Be Long," Gimme"), custom-created performances
for Doug Aitken's Station to Station series of transient happenings, life-affirming headline dates, and
special Song Reader events in which Beck and eclectic line-ups brought the book to life for a few
unforgettable evenings staged in San Francisco, London, and at Disney Hall in Los Angeles.
Beck opened 2014 with the 12th album of a peerless career: Morning Phase. Likened by some
to a companion piece of sorts to his 2002 masterpiece Sea Change, Morning Phase featured many of the
same musicians who played on that record--and who also accompanied Beck for the rapturously
received world tour supporting the record: Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Joey Waronker, Smokey Hormel,
Roger Joseph Manning Jr., and Jason Falkner. Featuring the hits “Blue Moon” and “Heart Is A Drum”
along with instant classics like “Waking Light” and “Wave”, Morning Phase harkened back to the stunning
harmonies, classic Californian song craft and staggering emotional impact of that record, while surging
forward with infectious optimism.
Morning Phase generated an instant and unanimous chorus of critical acclaim from the likes of
THE NEW YORKER (“a triumph… After listening to Morning Phase 50 times, I can’t find a single thing
wrong with it… You don’t get many albums like this in your lifetime… I can’t imagine someone who
couldn’t find some succor or beauty here”), ROLLING STONE (“an instant folk-rock classic… feels as
personal as it does universal”—4 ½ STARS), THE NEW YORK TIMES (“The record’s beauty approaches
slowly, floats, surrounds and shuts off external awareness in the brain stem”), NPR (“If we needed any
proof that albums still matter in this short-attention-span world, Beck's flawless 12th album, Morning
Phase, is a triumphant testimony”), and more. Morning Phase closed out 2014 atop year-end best lists,
and rolled into 2015 taking the Album of the Year top honor at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, as well
as the prize for Best Rock Album. Morning Phase also won in the Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical)
category.
The music has flowed from Beck without pause since: from globe-spanning live shows
continually hailed as the best of his storied career to the 2015 psych-dance summer jam “Dreams” that
NPR hailed as "urgently contemporary and irresistibly vintage,” USA TODAY labelled "a strong contender
for song of the summer,” and ROLLING STONE raved “This funky little groove is giving us Midnite Vultures
flashbacks in the best way possible.” This creative watershed couldn’t even be confined to Beck's output
under his own name, as evidenced by sublime collaborations including the Chemical Brothers’ “Wide
Open” and Flume's “Tiny Cities.” “Dreams” gave Beck his second #1 single at AAA radio (the first being
Morning Phase’s “Blue Moon”) as he continued feverishly working up sketches at home to be fleshed out
with producer Greg Kurstin (coincidentally a veteran of Beck's live band circa Sea Change). In summer
2016, a next single, “Wow,” was unveiled in all its fluorescent mutant hip hop glory. And accompanying
the retro-futuristic earworm was a virtual “Wow” world built with the help of a global collective of
creators on Instagram.
Both songs showed up alongside infectious third single—and Beck's third #1 Alternative track in
three decades—“Up All Night” on Beck's 13th studio album, Colors, hailed in advance of its October
2017 release by ROLLING STONE as a “euphoric blast of experimental pop,” Colors let loose an
intoxicating rainbow of auditory tricks and treats, rendering it a shoo-in for the summeriest smash of
2017’s fall season. From the captivating piano-driven “Dear Life,” which elicited Beatles and Beach Boys
comparisons from THE NEW YORK TIMES, to the irresistible title track and its visual feast of a video
directed by Edgar Wright, Colors was yet another commercial and critical milestone for Beck—one that
debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 and went on to win Best Alternative Music Album (Beck’s third) and
Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical (the second Beck album to do so) at the 61st Annual Grammy
Awards in 2019.
The 2017-2019 touring regimen following Colors’s release kicked off with a headlining run met
with yet more of the most enthusiastic notices of Beck's live career—and included some of Beck’s
biggest plays to date, including his first ever headline at New York’s Madison Square Garden, as well as a
summer 2019 co-headlining amphitheater tour with Cage The Elephant. Beck also accepted U2’s invite to
join The Joshua Tree Tour 2017 on a series of dates that ran September 3 at Ford Field in Detroit through
September 22, 2017 at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium. Across these wildly varying venues and crowds,
rave reviews remained a constant: ROLLING STONE hailed "Beck’s unparalleled stylistic versatility,” the
WASHINGTON POST witnessed a performance that "left everybody who witnessed it enthralled,” and so
on… Meanwhile, Beck's prolific recorded output would continue apace with “Tarantula” from Music
Inspired by ROMA, “Super Cool” (featuring Robyn & The Lonely Island) from The LEGO Movie 2, and his
unforgettable and unmistakable feature appearance on Cage The Elephant’s “Night Running.”
In April 2019, Beck would offer a first glimpse into Hyperspace with the stunning surprise single,
“Saw Lightning.” Featuring Beck’s unmistakable raw acoustic slide guitar and harmonica playing, “Saw
Lightning” was written and produced by Beck and Pharrell Williams (who would ultimately be credited as
co-writer and co-producer on seven of Hyperspace’s 11 tracks). “Uneventful Days” would follow that
October, reaching #1 on the Billboard US Adult Alternative chart and manifesting as a visual transmission
from Hyperspace via director Dev Hynes. The pocket universe created for “Uneventful Days” would also
feature album opener “Hyperlife,” as well as starring turns from Evan Rachel Wood, Tessa Thompson and
Alia Shawkat (observant longtime fans would no doubt spot the principals’ references to classic entries in
the Beck video canon). Following the emergence of two more stunners, the meditative “Dark Places” and
epic album closer “Everlasting Nothing,” Hyperspace was released November 22, 2019 to yet another
torrent of critical accolades: "There is not a boring moment on the entire album” raved the ASSOCIATED
PRESS, while PEOPLE hailed Hyperspace as Beck’s "best in a decade,” a sentiment shared by THE WALL
STREET JOURNAL (“his strongest in over a decade.” Even more effusive praise came from ROLLING STONE
(“A dark, heavenly pop fantasy… a revelatory inner-space journey… like David Bowie’s Major Tom
checking in from distant orbit”), USA TODAY ("Beck has rarely been better than he is on Hyperspace,
which shoots for the stars with bold production and storytelling that stays grounded with emotional
resonance”), and a host of others…
More recently, following a handful of refreshingly freeform one-off shows over the course of
2021 — including one at The Ford in his L.A. hometown during which THE LOS ANGELES TIMES noted
"he’d do something to make you think of him as having set the table for such hard-to-classify artists as Lil
Nas X and Post Malone — the ease with which he switched between rapping and singing in 'Qué Onda
Guero,' for instance, or how fluidly he and the band blended synthetic and hand-played elements in
‘Dreams’” — Beck is currently preparing to resurrect the live show that moved THE TIMES OF LONDON to
describe him as "a one-man festival… among modern pop stars perhaps only Prince had more range“
beginning with a return to the festival, theater and arena stages of the UK and Europe this summer. For
further information, updates, etc., check back at beck.com or follow him on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook
or Friendster.