Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Elevator Music
2. Think I'm in Love
3. Cellphone's Dead
4. Strange Apparition
5. Soldier Jane
6. Nausea
7. New Round
8. Dark Star
9. We Dance Alone
10. No Complaints
11. 1000BPM
12. Motorcade
13. Information
14. Movie Theme
15. Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton

Disc 2:

1. Bonus Material [DVD][*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4430 in Music
• Brand: Beck
• Released on: 2006-10-03
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .26 pounds

Album Description
Hailed as "a deeply natural songwriter" (THE NEW YORKER) who "defies expectations in his own way" (TIME) and "Gen X's most famous absurdist" (BLENDER), BECK is the single most inventive and eclectic figure to emerge from the '90s alternative revolution. In an era obsessed with junk culture, Beck seamlessly blends pop, folk, hiphop, indie/underground and electronica with the end result being an authentically uncategorizeable musical style that nevertheless has sold millions of records and scored multiple Grammy awards.

Three years in the making, THE INFORMATION is the album Beck began work on in 2003 with producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead's OK Computer, Kid A; Beck's Sea Change, Mutations) and finally completed this year once Guero's massive success and encore touring engagements, as well as Nigel's other commitments, were fulfilled.

THE INFORMATION is comprised of 15 songs and a DVD featuring homemade videos for each of the 15 songs shot in-studio during the actual sessions. The artwork for The Information is either non-existent or infinite, depending on one's point of view. Each copy will come in a blank package with one of four collectible sticker sheets specially designed by European and American artists and representative of the unique Beck aesthetic. The stickers will give every Beck fan the opportunity to participate in the creative process by designing his or her own one of a kind CD cover.

Amazon.com
On The Information, Beck Hansen is seriously bummed out. Not that he sounds it as much as he did on 2002's laconic, Fred Neil-worshipping Sea Change. Technology and stuff, and the way it gets in the way of human interaction, is the subtext if not the full-on concept at play here. Recorded with art-rock anal-retentive Nigel Goodrich at the helm, work began on this album not long after Sea Change but was shelved for a few years while Mr. Hansen made 2005's Guero with the Dust Brothers. Unsurprisingly, it sounds a bit like both of those. The trappings of minimalist pop, fuzzy folk, click-hop, hip-hop, baroque psychedelia, and funky pop are to be found on this endearing release. Like Jean Cocteau or David Bowie, Beck is an artistic chameleon whose greatest gift is knowing which artists to borrow from, and when. The cover artwork consists of stickers that you can arrange however you like, which perhaps appeals too much to your own nostalgic/retro, "Trapper Keeper" sensibilities. And yet, it's kind of awesome, something you can't believe has never been done before. Much like the album it adorns. --Mike McGonigal

Customer Reviews

Getting better all the time...
While Beck's earlier work (who can look at Odelay and not say "masterpiece?") was brilliant in a raw way, I think he's gotten more refined and yet has developed more depth over the years. I totally fell in love with Guero and wondered if he could keep the pace going. To my surprise, I like parts of The Information even better. It's more techno, which I like, and yes, darker. What I get out of this CD is a love/hate affair with technology & the alienation it brings to our lives. We can cross the world in seconds thanks to the net, and yet we are more distant, isolating within ourselves. This is a CD for the current day...it's wired, and so are we. And there's no going back.

The album as we know it has changed here
I felt OK writing a review on release day because Beck was leaking videos and other new tracks on his myspace page for a month or two before. I appreciated that and because of it, I must admit that I cannot remember the last time I was so eager for an album to come out. That being said, I definitely have favorites already. They include:

"Elevator Music" - very danceable tune, should have been the 1st single.

"Soldier Jane" - constant head bobbing, (important for me after Guerolito) definitely has some psychedelic qualities; I like the synths here.

"Dark Star" - I have never done acid, but the media has convinced me it must be something like this. Cool song and by far the best video on the DVD. It is as if Stanley Kubrick directed the video laced to early 80s underground beats. One person commented that Beck resembles Willy Wonka a bit here.

"We Dance Alone" - I just added this one because it caught on with me after a while. This is probably a song that showcases Beck's eclecticism more than any other, many different things going on here.

"No complaints" - Very catchy; one of the most stripped down tracks on the album, perfect for the MP3 player, walking outside. Great lyrics.

"The Information" - The title track has a hard bass beat and is solid overall.

The last song is a montage of a couple different tracks, focusing on change. This album was marketed different from the others; Beck is telling us the music is changing. Example: I went out and bought it rather than downloading this . . . Why?

Partly because of the DVD that comes with the album, partly the releases on myspace. Brilliant marketing focusing more on the album as a package. And I'm still split on rating it vs. Guero. Even though there were some tracks I could do without, (e.g. - Motorcade) when rating this album you have to keep in mind that Beck made a video for every song. Has anyone done that before??? And then NOT charge us a lot for it? At well under $15 here, this is a bargain for an album with 15 tracks and 15 videos on DVD.

I could go on about the stickers, but I won't. Beck has attempted something different and I liked it, hope you do too. Let's watch if the rest of the music industry follows suit.

Everything you ever loved about Beck, and his best since the 90s
Though I'd hardly say he's hardly floundering, Beck's last two albums were a bit of a disappointment for me. The gloomy, downbeat songwriting on Sea Change was an interesting and surprising turn, but in the end it seemed like Beck trying to do a Nick Drake impersonation that, while adequate, was no substitute for the real thing, and didn't really play to Beck's strong suits. Guero, on the other hand marked a return to the Beck we all know and love, but it seemed like a retreat, and an attempt to recapture past success. To that effect it worked: Guero sold a lot of copies, and it had a handful of great songs, but many of the songs sounded too much like sideways versions of old Beck songs and it lacked the creative spark Beck is so known for.

Now I still love the guy, but I was slightly apprehensive when I heard his new album was coming so shortly after the last. But my worries were laid to rest upon first listen. This album is everything I've come to love about Beck. It's manages to bring together the atmospherics and songwriting of Mutations and Sea Change and pull them together with the kind of experimental electronica and toe-tapping beats pioneered on Odelay, and in so doing creates a completely new sound that should satisfy fans on both sides.

The album begins suitable with the languid and distant hip hop of Elevator Music. This sets the tone for the album perfectly. This album is layered, and funky, but never high energy. It's the other end of the spectrum from Midnite Vultures with an aloof sounding Beck rhyming over some echoey, eerie, and atmospheric beats. Choirs and cello strings regularly accompany the synthesizers and turntables. Beck evokes a similar funk ennui in Cell Phone's Dead and We Dance Alone, both very strong tracks.

There are pop moments as well, though. Beck puts his freestyle flow aside for the second track, Think I'm In Love, which could be the follow up to last year's Girl. It has an infectious chorus backed by bubbly ivory tickling, and a cello-backed bridge that cements the tracks as pop gold. He follows it up with the even more upbeat Strange Apparition, which evokes shades of Fatboy Slim's Praise You.

The album does sag a bit at the end of the disc. Motorcades tinny racket falls to connect, and the synth cheese of Movie Theme proves too overbearimg. The disc closes with a 10-minute medley of 3 songs, the middle of which is worth listening too and the ending of which comes off as either vapid pot talk or Scientologist proselytizing, I'm not sure which.

But the bottom line is abundantly clear: This is Beck's strongest album in many years, and a far better heir to Odelay than the trying-too-hard Guero. It manages to be a step forward for the artist, while still playing to his strong suits. The production is slick, everything about it is quintessentially Beck, and it doesn't sound like anything else out there. We have a winner.