Beck (born Beck David Hansen) has come a long way since his hit single "Loser" caused him to be dubbed the slacker voice of his generation.
Since riding high on the radio waves with his tongue-in-cheek take on rap, and with his popular though unlikely chorus ("I'm a loser baby/ so why don't you kill me?"), he's had a couple of critically acclaimed albums — first scoring a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance in 1997, with "Odelay," and then nabbing the same award this year for "Mutations."
Considering the latter was no more than a collection of alternate, acoustic-based cuts — not meant to be an album on its own merit by any means — the junior high school dropout-turned-video-clerk and occasional streetside folkie performer isn't doing bad for himself.
His new tour, appropriately titled the "Midnite Vultures 2000 Tour," after his latest album of the same name, touches down at the E Center on Wednesday. The show starts at 7:30. Caf Tacuba will open.
To call 29-year-old Beck a creator of alternative music is playing it safe. His recordings have dabbled in blues, country-and-western, R&B and in his latest incarnation he lets loose with some aggressive hip-hop and funk, a culmination of sounds that, when asked, he says he was led to on instinct alone.
"I was looking a lot more to contemporary hip-hop and R&B (on this album) — it's definitely been more progressive than anything in the rock 'n' roll world in the last five years," Beck told the Deseret News from his Los Angeles home.
"It doesn't seem strange to me — the (Rolling) Stones looked to Muddy Waters — so if I take from Busta Rhymes and Mary J. Blige, it's all part of that continuation."
For the first time, Beck has laid aside his sampling and self-produced multi-track wizardry, and instead backed himself with a full band, making for thick, layered sounds on his newest effort. He's become a bandleader in his own right — it's not unusual to hear the piano, tambourine, trombone, tenor saxophone, trumpet, banjo and background vocals, in addition to a guitar, bass and drums, all in one song. And, oh yes, let's not forget that his voice is included in that package. The finished product is a dense sound that doesn't always lend itself to easy listening.
And he wouldn't change a thing about the results.
"Yeah, songs are an addictive process. I spent a year with these songs, adding and taking away. Participation is required, but I wouldn't include any other subtractions; it's meant to be a whole environment to get into."
Speaking of environments, some would consider Beck's lyrics descriptive to a fault. With lyrics like, "There's a lighthouse in her soul/ Wrestling with butcher girls/ She don't ever change her clothes/ Masterpieces liquidate in fertile tears/ I could sleep inside her bones" (from "Pressure Zone"), it's clear many listeners tend to bypass the meaning for the big, thick beats. If it seems that he relies on sounds rather than making sense, however, he says that just isn't the case.
His songs are "totally thought out and constructed and not random at all," Beck said. "They're not in the tradition of rock lyrics, but a more literary approach.
"Not that I'm trying to be pretentious, but I come from writing. I can write a simple lyric and I can understand people appreciate the simple lyric, but that's not my thing. I get off on combining imagery with sound. Most songs are about something and so are mine. Shoot me for having nuance and complexity — that's what I wanted to do.
"There's nothing new to that, really, it's a tradition in rock. It's an art form that's primal, and I try to do something more sophisticated with it."