Beck has proven he can make music that never resembles the one he was making a minute ago, and he can make dance music that doesn’t sound like others’ dance music, but makes you think about a lot of artists at the same time.
As promised, Beck has released his new single ‘Dreams’, the first song of an upcoming album, the follow-up of his 2014 Grammy-Award winning album, although the track sounds nothing like any tune on ‘Morning Phase’. If ‘Morning Phase’ was dreamy folk, ‘Dreams’ has vigorous beats installing a hot and funky dance floor from the beginning, which let you hear a bit of new influences, MGMT, Foster the People, Tame Impala, and old influences, Nil Rodgers or even Bowie’s 80’s dance period. It sounds like a sort of pop-rock-funk-electronic medley that shifts tempo at two third of the song to bring back more explosive goodness.
Still, there are some set-backs, for example the repeated ooo-oh-oh-ohs may be my least favorite part of the track, how many times did you hear that in a song these days? Then, by dint of being a chameleon absorbing every piece of music ever made, Beck does not seem to have any weirdness left. May be this track is too ready-to-hit-the-radio, may be Beck wants to be too popular whereas he used to be weird with indecipherable lyrics. I used to get a kick out of things like ‘love machines on the sympathy crutches/discount orgies on the dropout buses/hitchin’ a ride with the bleedin’ noses/comin’ to town with the briefcase blues’ (‘Devil’s Haircut’) or ‘Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare/Banned all the music with a phony gas chamber/Cause one’s got a weasel and the other’s got a flag/One’s got on the pole shove the other in a bag/With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose job’ (‘Loser’)…and now what do we have? Things like ‘Here we are/Running circles, around around around around/When nothing’s right, just close your eyes/Close your eyes and you’re gone/Dreams (dreams, dreams)/D-d-d-dreams (oh oh oh)/She’s makin’ me high, she’s makin’ me high/Dreams (dreams, dreams)’… Beck has lost his touch with crazy word-plays and may be all this fun-lyric business was pre-scientology? There’re a few ‘fucking’ in this new song though, but even the swearing seems very tamed.
‘Dreams’ is a good summer jam though, everyone agrees on this, and the dull lyrics should not prevent you from dancing.
