Beck
The Information
(Interscope)
Leave it to Mr. Hansen to turn a commercial product into a scrappy DIY project, perhaps inspired by his grandfather, a well-known Fluxus artist. But peel back those make-it-sweet stickers for the blank cover and under all the cell-phone blips and beeps you’ll find some pretty dark stuff. Beck’s distinctive sing-talk is still there, as are the head-scratching lyrics and hodge-podge of samples, but the mood of The Information feels cynical and even a little neurotic (but still fun to dance to). Keeping with the theme, the accompanying DVD of lo-fi videos looks like something you could make at home if you had a bear suit and some really cool friends.
---Sue Carter Flinn