Here's The Information. Now, What Will You Do With It?
CD Review: "The Information" by Beck 
We all know Beck is a genius. He's shown us over his career that he can be a funky dancer, a shoe gazer, a singer/songwriter, and a rapper. So when you've done all that, and have come down off the cloud of the amazing Spanish-Influenced Guero, where do you go? What do you do if you're Beck? It's hard to say. But his producer Nigel Godrich had some ideas.
For the first five tracks of The Information, you're coerced into thinking the album is going to be a laid-back rehash of the solid grooves found on Midnight Vultures. At first, you're really pleased with the progress. Opener "Elevator Music" has Beck rhyming over heavy, thumping bass, dry snapping drums before opening up into a shimmering synth-laden chorus. Second track, and arguably The Information's strongest "I Think I'm In Love," borrows the playful bass from the song before, but employs a ringing U2 reminiscent piano and gorgeous vocal harmonies. Third cut "Cellphone's Dead" bounces between a Donna Summer 70's flashback and slapping Moog hits on the verses. The voice over of "One by one I'll knock you out" permeates your thought and you start to get the feeling this album is going to be an absolute classic as it continues. It switches over to "Strange Apparition" and you're pulled in further. The slow piano-clanging breakdown in the middle houses some of Beck's most earnest and bluesy singing in years. Number five is where you start recognizing that The Information is about to take sharp turn to ambience. Still, "Soldier Jane" is nice and warm, and the pads in the background smolder like a fire carrying the heat of Beck's somber melody to your heart.
Six is where the album really goes awry. Whether for good or bad, I've yet to decide, but "Nausea" shows an odd irritation in Mr. Hansen's voice and it fades shortly into "New Round." This song reveals producer Godrich's idea of creating a swelling, slow hum of a record. The tracks start all sounding like forgotten B-Sides of Sea Change and other Beck records. Occasionally, the rhythms return to the disc, but from this point on, they're all subdued and Beck's voice seems distant, lost in the blur of compression. The relentless floating is only once broken up by the bombastic flow of "1000 BPM," and The Information winds slowly and methodically to the somber 10 minute ending track, capped off by creepy spoken word passages about space travel.
Then the realization hits you that Nigel and Beck have tricked you into delving deep into an atmospheric, post-Apocalyptic wasteland and given you a strange choice. Maybe this was the plan all along. Very much like Radiohead's Kid A, Beck brings you to this foreboding crossroads after the immediately accessible Guero.
Ultimately The Information is what you make of it. It can either be a deep masterpiece, or garbage depending on your listening devotion, but it's quite possible I will decide that before I decide which stickers to put on the "Make-Your-Own-Album-Cover."
Download Beck's The Information on iTunes 
What say you?!