Beck Has Fun With His Kids In ‘Wow’ Video
Beck wants to be everything and wants to be everybody. In the last years, he has collaborated with everyone, from Sia, to Childish Gambino, Fun, the Chemical Brothers, M83, Flume… and isn’t he supposed to be on the new Lady Gaga’s album too? He schmoozed with Kanye West, said the rapper was a genius even when Kanye interrupted him at the Grammys Awards ceremony. He is cool with everyone, he embraces everybody and everybody embraces him and that’s fine.
A few months ago, he released a new song ‘Wow’, and the second single of his much anticipated 13th album – he has reportedly been working on it for years – but on Tuesday, we finally got a video for ‘Wow’. The video is a weird but pleasant thing showing Beck being cool, jumping and dancing in the streets of LA, but the clip is also a western, a free for all dancing cheerleader celebration, and a kid jumping party – and you may recognize Beck’s blonde kids among these jumpers, I did recognize Cosimo, he looks like a mini Beck! But there are also tons of strange or random things, like roses with eyes, a cute dog, video games, a melting hand, a guy with smoking eyes and Cookie Monsters which remind me the art cover of M83’s ‘Junk’… I am not sure it means anything, it is just playful and colorful, designed to embrace a lot of cultural tidbits and an occasion for Beck to show us his cool western leather jacket. It’s a visual collage, just as the song is a sonic collage, and Beck seems to be more and more inspired by mainstream with snippets derived from current pop music,… ‘Wow’ has the energy from a hip hop song and the playfulness of a pop song, but it’s undeniably a Beck song.
Beck is still this eclectic chameleon at ease with our current culture, although his art is getting more and more distant from any real meaning.
