Guero

Last updated
Guero
Guero cover.jpg
Studio album by
Beck
ReleasedMarch 29, 2005
RecordedSeptember 2003–August 2004
Studio
Genre
Length49:55
Label Interscope
Producer
Beck chronology
Sea Change
(2002)		Guero
(2005)		 Guerolito
(2005)
Singles from Guero
  1. "E-Pro"
    Released: March 14, 2005
  2. "Girl"
    Released: July 4, 2005 (UK)
  3. "Hell Yes"
    Released: 2005

Guero is the ninth studio album by American musician Beck, released on March 29, 2005, by Interscope Records. It was produced with John King and Mike Simpson of the Dust Brothers, who had worked with Beck on his 1996 album Odelay , [1] as well as Tony Hoffer. [2]

Contents

The album was promoted with the singles "E-Pro", "Girl", and "Hell Yes", and debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200. To date, it is Beck's highest-charting album and had sold over 868,000 copies in the United States as of July 2008. [3] It received positive reviews from critics.

Background

Güero (pron. IPA ['wero]) means "blond" in Mexican Spanish, but can also refer to a light-skinned person. [4] MTV described the term as being "Mexican slang for a blond-haired, fair-skinned Caucasian". [5]

Beck was raised in a prominently Chicano area of Los Angeles. [6] In an interview with ABC's Nightline , Beck said the term "guero" was "something that I'd hear growing up. Something I'd hear on the street, walking to school or something, I'd get called a 'Guero'. ... It's just a word that stuck in my head and I wanted to do something with that at some point. ... I ended up, in the end, just kind of doing this almost journalistic kind of look at that whole time." [1]

The title of track 2, "Qué Onda Guero" (or "¿Qué onda, güero?"), is Mexican slang for "what up, whitey?" [5]

Recording

The album was recorded over a period of nine months, following a year and a half of touring in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. [1] Several other events contributed to the writing of the songs, including the suicide of Beck's friend Elliott Smith and Beck's impending child with wife Marissa Ribisi. [1] The song "Broken Drum" is dedicated to Smith. More than 15 songs were considered for the final running order of the album. [2]

"Hell Yes" features spoken contributions from Christina Ricci, who happened to be in the studio at the time of recording. Beck and the Dust Brothers had spent weeks auditioning sushi waitresses around Los Angeles but chose Ricci after she "tried it and just absolutely nailed it". She is credited as "Kurisuti-na" in the album's liner notes. [7]

Jack White of the White Stripes plays bass on "Go It Alone". Money Mark, solo artist and keyboardist for the Beastie Boys, plays the organ on "Earthquake Weather". Petra Haden, formerly of That Dog and the Rentals, provides an intricate backing vocal track for "Rental Car".

Release

Guero was initially intended to be released on October 26, 2004, but was pushed back, due to delays with the artwork, mixing and music videos. [2] An unmixed and un-mastered version of the album was leaked in January 2005, under the title Ubiquitous. The track listing differed slightly from the officially announced track listing of Guero. [5] On February 1, Beck released the Hell Yes EP on iTunes, which included remixes of the title track and "Que Onda Guero" by 8-bit and "E-Pro" and "Girl" by Paza. [8] On March 10, five songs from the forthcoming album were featured in an episode of The O.C. [6] [1]

Guero was released on March 29. [9] The album was released simultaneously in three formats: a standard 13-track CD, PlayStation Portable UMD [ citation needed ] and a deluxe CD/DVD edition. The latter featured seven bonus tracks, a surround sound mix and interactive video art for each song. [10]

Later in 2005, Beck released an album of Guero remixes called Guerolito , featuring remixes by Boards of Canada, Octet, the Beastie Boys' Ad-Rock and the Dust Brothers' John King. [11]

"Black Tambourine" was featured in the David Lynch film Inland Empire , the trailer for the film (500) Days of Summer , and episode 22 of season 4 of The Good Wife , as well as the 2006 video game Lumines II , and the video game Driver: San Francisco . "Farewell Ride" was featured in FX trailers promoting the final season of The Shield .

Reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic 78/100 [12]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [13]
Blender Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [14]
Entertainment Weekly A− [15]
The Guardian Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [16]
The Independent Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [17]
NME 8/10 [18]
Pitchfork 6.6/10 [19]
Q Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [20]
Rolling Stone Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [21]
Spin B [22]

Commercial

Guero debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 2, marking Beck's best chart performance to date, and sold 162,000 copies in its first week. [23] It was certified gold by the RIAA on June 7, 2005. [24]

Critical

Guero received generally positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic it has a score of 78 out of 100, based on reviews from 39 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [12] Several critics compared the album to Beck's 1996 album Odelay , [19] [17] [16] while others observed that such comparisons were inevitable but ultimately misguided. [21] [15]

Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called the album "the first record since Odelay where Beck mixes up the medicine the way he did in his Nineties prime". Contrasting the album with the "wiseass charisma" of his early albums, Sheffield noted that Beck now sounded "like an extremely bummed-out dude who made it to the future and discovered he hates it there." [21] David Browne of Entertainment Weekly called Guero "alive and frisky" when compared to its predecessor, Sea Change (2002), and called it Beck's "most inviting, least off-putting work in years", praising its "slightly broader emotional range". Browne stated that the album felt "simultaneously familiar and new" and was "the first record on which the many moods and sides of Beck coexist". [15] Andy Gill of The Independent observed that "Beck darts around the musical map like an animated flea," and praised the album's "judicious blends of beats, riffs, songs and raps spiralling off in a variety of directions". Gill highlighted the song "Missing" and its "reflections on the essential patchwork incompleteness of life", comparing it to Beck's work on the whole, "which typically makes unorthodox wholes from diverse fragments." [17]

Rob Mitchum of Pitchfork gave the album a mixed review and compared the album extensively to Odelay, stating, "one wonders whether Mr. Hansen's heart is in the proceedings, as many of the songs appear to be little more than weak echoes of their similar predecessors". Mitchum concluded that "the final result feels rote and calculated." [19]

The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die . [25]

Track listing

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."E-Pro" Beck Hansen, Dust Brothers, Beastie Boys 3:22
2."Qué Onda Guero"Hansen, Dust Brothers3:29
3."Girl"Hansen, Dust Brothers3:30
4."Missing"Hansen, Dust Brothers, Vinicius de Moraes, Carlos Lyra4:44
5."Black Tambourine"Hansen, Dust Brothers, Eugene Blacknell2:46
6."Earthquake Weather"Hansen, Dust Brothers, Slave 4:26
7."Hell Yes"Hansen, Dust Brothers3:18
8."Broken Drum"Hansen4:30
9."Scarecrow"Hansen, Dust Brothers4:16
10."Go It Alone"Hansen, Dust Brothers, Jack White 4:09
11."Farewell Ride"Hansen4:19
12."Rental Car"Hansen, Dust Brothers3:05
13."Emergency Exit"Hansen, Dust Brothers4:01
Total length:49:55
Deluxe edition bonus tracks
No.TitleNotesLength
14."Send a Message to Her"Also on UK, Australian, Russian releases and Japanese tour edition4:31
15."Chain Reaction"Also on UK release and Japanese tour edition3:30
16."Clap Hands"Also on Japanese tour edition3:18
17."Girl" (Remix)Remixed by Octet3:54
18."Broken Drum" (Remix)Remixed by Boards of Canada 5:39
19."Still Missing""Missing" remix by Röyksopp 4:58
20."Fax Machine Anthem""Hell Yes" remix by Dizzee Rascal 3:07

Sample credits

SongSampleArtist
"E-Pro""So What'cha Want" Beastie Boys
"Missing""Você e Eu" Claus Ogerman and His Orchestra
"Black Tambourine""We Know We Gotta Live Together"Eugene Blacknell & The New Breed
"Earthquake Weather""What It Is?" The Temptations
"Coming Soon", "Just Freak" Slave
"Hell Yes""Far East Mississippi" The Ohio Players
"Under the Influence of Love" Love Unlimited
"Go It Alone""Outside Love"Brethren

Personnel

Musicians
Technical

Charts

Certifications

RegionCertification Certified units/sales
Canada (Music Canada) [45] Gold50,000^
Japan (RIAJ) [46] Gold100,000^
United Kingdom (BPI) [47] Silver60,000^
United States (RIAA) [48] Gold500,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

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References

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  2. 1 2 3 Perez, Rodrigo (September 16, 2004). "Oh, Delay! New Beck Album Pushed Back To 2005". MTV . Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  3. ↑ "Ask Billboard". Billboard . 2008-07-18. Archived from the original on 2008-08-01. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  4. ↑ "Ask a Mexican: Beck It Up: So, what does guero really mean?". Riverfront Times . October 13, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 Perez, Rodrigo (January 19, 2005). "Finished Version Of That Beck LP You Downloaded Due In March". MTV . Retrieved February 15, 2022.
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  7. 1 2 Montgomery, James (August 18, 2005). "Beck's Next Single Features Christina Ricci, A.K.A. 'Kurisuti-na'". MTV . Retrieved February 15, 2022.
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  9. ↑ Sexton, Paul (March 29, 2021). "'Guero': Beck's Stylistic Wanderlust Continues". Udiscovermusic. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  10. ↑ Stever, Eric (September 1, 2006). "The Infinite Album". Wired . Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  11. ↑ "Beck Gathering Up 'Guero' Remixes". Billboard . October 19, 2005. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  12. 1 2 "Reviews for Guero by Beck". Metacritic . Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  13. ↑ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Guero – Beck". AllMusic . Retrieved February 21, 2016.
  14. ↑ "Beck: Guero". Blender (35): 112. April 2005.
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  26. ↑ Staci Spring (1 May 2009). Cramer, Alfred (ed.). Musicians & Composers of the 20th Century. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press. p. 90. ISBN   9781587655128.
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  46. ↑ "Japanese album certifications – Beck – Guero" (in Japanese). Recording Industry Association of Japan . Retrieved 11 September 2019.Select 2005年4月 on the drop-down menu
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  48. ↑ "American album certifications – Beck – Guero". Recording Industry Association of America.
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