The record’s dreamy opener, “Hyperlife”, blends perfectly into the scattering single “Uneventful Days”. Although he isn’t responsible for all of the album’s production, Hyperspace maintains an impressive sense of cohesion. Whereas Greg Kurstin took compression to overly saccharine levels, Williams strikes a suitable balance between hip-hop-infused techno and atmospheric backdrops. The Good: Pharrell Williams’ work on Hyperspace gives Beck’s songwriting the perfect amount of polish that he attempted to achieve on Colors, but ultimately failed to grasp. The main difference this time around is that Beck has collaborated with polymath Pharrell Williams on the album’s production, one of Hyperspace’s greatest strengths. Now, with his 14th studio LP, Hyperspace, he’s blended many of his previous explorations with a pop-forward foundation to mostly favorable results. He experimented with celebratory funk on Midnite Vultures, melancholy folk on Sea Change, and radio-ready trap on Colors. What you’ve got to decide now is whether that’s a downfall or a success.The Lowdown: Alternative rock icon Beck has always been a shape-shifter of sorts. What matters is that the record has the duality to be both. Maybe he’s perfectly happy with the mold he has made for himself, and Hyperspace is simply the extension of that. Or maybe that wasn’t his intention at all. Though Beck has somehow sidestepped his peers, and maybe he has found a new way into this big, commercial genre by doing so. But we all know that the true forerunners of alternative rock and pop are running on a different field. It’s easier to sell off a supposedly ‘alt-track’ than to try and squeeze your way in between the pop giants, and look at how well it has worked for some (Billie Eilish, Twenty One Pilots, Halsey).
Even more so because so many artists today are doing the opposite, such that it’s ironically starting to feel like the safe route.
Hyperspace is a good record, and for Beck to change things up in a very relevant way, while still maintaining some semblance of the artist he was, is a great success. Good for Beck that he’s built a big name for himself, and has access to top-class producers like Williams. It was actually surprising to me when I later learned that Chris Martin sings backup on the track, maybe because “Stratosphere” sounds like something solely ‘Beck,’ void of the littered production and machine vocals that feature otherwise heavily so. It’s a standout track, playing seamlessly on ’80s-muffled keys and a Coldplay-esque vocal line that’s both complacent and endless with its delivery. Get to something like “Stratosphere” and the difference is starkly apparent. Tracks like “Die Waiting,” “Saw Lightning” and “See Through” really sacrifice the deliberate melody of Beck’s standpoint tone for an easier writing tip, and while the issue isn’t really with that saturated sound, the record loses credibility because of it. Still, Hyperspace rides dangerously close to the commercial side of a breathless genre and slips past the edge more than it should. He even drops some bars halfway through “Hyperspace,” with a half rap-type monologue, proof of his willingness to break beyond one, singular sound. It feels like a lot of the composition of these tracks was pushed by experimentation, swooning with rising synths and a tender balance between the electronic and the instrument, where Beck does more than just reinvent his sound, but have fun with it too. If this really was Beck’s doing, and Williams merely gave him the push, then it’s a wonderfully artistic move, but somehow, it feels like the opposite.Ĭertain tracks are easier to believe in – “Hyperlife” and “Hyperspace” are testaments to the concept that’s present here – the contemporary sound that gave Beck his name, bringing the record away from the provisional formula it otherwise protracts. They’re as far from the ‘Beck’ that we’ve come to expect than they ever could be, and maybe that’s a good thing, but then who’s to claim the success of it? It’s a finicky one, and when you dive down to the crux of it, any co-production as varied as this will always pull up a two-way act, with one inevitable leader behind it all. The record was co-produced by Pharrell Williams, which isn’t of much surprise when you listen to the processing behind these tracks.
0 kommentar(er)
