Becks Musical Genius Essay Research Paper Music — страница 2

called “Playing with Matches.” This exhibit focused on artwork created from garbage, such as cigarette-butt sculptures and Hershey wrapper collages. Working with “junk” is Beck’s greatest talent. Beck can be seen as an Alchemist who transforms junk into art, or as he says in the song, “We live again,” turn “shit to gold.” His methods of creating art, visual and audible, may be absurd, but they are honest and innovative and that is what makes it genius. Beck’s frustrations with conforming to the rigid structure of high school caused him to drop out by 9th grade. After his separation from a conformist learning environment, Beck took up a succession of clerical level jobs. Unfortunately, he found these jobs to be too structured as well, and was fired for not

following dress codes. Fortunately, he found condolence with a guitar, at age 16. He then began to study musicians, including famous blues and folk legends Woody Guthrie and Mississippi John Hart (Peabody). His love for the guitar soon led him to playing at local bars and parties. By 1994, Beck had released his first album, Mellow Gold, which included his hit song, “Loser.” This slacker anthem hit appealed to the apathetic views of Generation-X’ers and basked Beck in airtime on radio stations and MTV elevating him to a new level: mainstream artist. This is when I first took notice of Beck’s talent. I found his lyrics and music style to be interestingly absurd and different from all of the other bands of the time. Despite Beck’s newfound stardom gained from his popular

album, Mellow Gold, he did not turn into a showbiz sellout, and create music for the sole purpose of making money. The next two albums, One Foot in the Grave and O’Delay, proved to the world that Beck was not a one-hit wonder. In fact, O’Delay was Grammy award winning platinum album. It was an album of full of alchemy; turning hackneyed sampling styles, tired rap beats, and folk guitar styles into fresh, new-fangled sounding music, flooded with poetic imagery about seizing life while you can and working with what you have. Clearly, Beck Hansen is a musical mastermind. His postmodern artistic talent for turning “shit into gold” has made him a success. It will be exciting to see what Beck has done next in his subsequent album, Midnite Vultures, which is expected to come out

sometime in late November. According to a review of Beck’s new album in CMJ, a music review magazine, “The one overriding element of this record is the embracing of sexuality in all its colors, from fuchsia to chromium (Rotondi).” To fully understand Beck and his absurdity you must willingly listen to his lyrics with an open mind, and then, I hope, you will begin to appreciate the genius that lies behind the cherubic, adolescent face of Beck.