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Beck on 'Guero'

added 22 March 2005 at 15.24

Beck is back - the peerlessly inventive tunesmith releases the long awaited follow-up to 2002's 'Sea Change' this week. Hear him talk John Kennedy through 'Guero' track by track, plus hear the record for yourself, in full, on the Xfm Listening Post.

Beck's Dust Brothers-produced, fifth studio album is as eclectic a grab-bag collection of genres, moods, styles and attitudes as his many devoted fans would expect.

Get the full track by track rundown from the man himself.

Hit the [listen] links below to hear Beck's commentary, click here to listen to 'Guero' on the Xfm Listening Post.

'E-Pro'
"It's kind of an angry song, it's just kind of an out and out venting song. Kind of looking for the humanity in the situation too, but also not really holding back." [listen]

'Que Onda Guero'
"This song is specifically about a neighbourhood I grew up in. It's kind of a picture of what I saw and my experiences. It was mostly a central American neighbourhood, pretty low on the povery scale." [listen]

'Girl'
"It started out as a very, very sweet song and then the lyrics kind of got infected a little bit and I kind of ended up wanting to make them a little rougher." [listen]

'Missing'
"This was one of the ones that started from a loop. Kind of a Brazilian loop, and we just kind of built it up there - I really wanted most of these songs to be really simple..." [listen]

'Black Tambourine'
"This, I think, is one of the best ones, live, that we have going right now. We have two drummers and it's kind of a jungle beat, Bo-Diddly, Adam Ant party." [listen]

'Earthquake Weather'
"It's the kind of weather in LA where it's dry, it's exceptionally hot, it feels like the pavement's gonna start cracking and there's no wind. It just feels quiet and dead. It's sort of the stillness be fore something happens." [listen]

'Hell Yes'
"It's kind of one of these venting raps, I think kind of tongue-in-cheek. it's hard to articulate - kind of a silly, goofy look at reality TV world." [listen]

'Broken Down'
"I think it connects this record to 'Sea Change', which is something that I really wanted to do with this record. I didn't want it to just vacilate suddenly and some of the songs, even with the beats, are still somewhat introspective." [listen]

'Scarecrow'
"I had this whole image of this shack, out on the bayou with the trees hanging down and the alligators and just a bunch of robots on the porch, just hanging out." [listen]

'Go It Alone'
"A lot of times when I'm working in the studio I'll have melody ideas and I'll go lay it down with a 'Na-Na' or a 'Doo Doo' and the Dust Brothers always seemed to like that better than my lyrics..." [listen]

'Farewell Ride'
"This one's, kind of, going back to the robot theme. Sort of a robot chain gang thing." [listen]

'Rental Car'
"In America everything was about the nu-metal, the Limp Bizkit's and stuff, so we had the idea to try something really heavy but mix it with some alpine female yodelling." [listen]

'Emergency Exit'
"I think there's kind of a hopeful note at the end of the song. It was really difficult to find an ending for this record. This one kind of got drafted." [listen]

Tagged as Beck, archive

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