So why is Beck’s Guero on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
By the mid-2000s, Beck had already produced an incredible and eclectic array of music, spanning from hip-hop to electronica to folk to alt rock to country.
And while some Beck albums – Mutations (#217 of best 1,000 albums ever) and Sea Change (#259) – focus exclusively or mostly on a particular musical genre, Guero spans a great distance and territory, and overall it’s a hell of a fun and exciting ride.
I’ll start with “Girl,” which is Beck at his most sincere and free from irony or genre-based shtick. It’s pure glorious pop/rock, with a chorus that shows off how beautiful and soulful Beck can sound when he’s of a mind.
And then jump from there to the slinky and deep funk electronica of “Hell Yes,” which I have on multiple occasions listened to on repeat for as long as I had time to absorb the ecstatic joy of it.
And as good as it is – and I could make an argument that it’s an all time Top 10 Beck song across his huge catalog – I swear to you that the remix of “Hell Yes,” called “GHETTOCHIP MALFUNCTION,” is multiple times better.
It’s one of the best [REDACTED] songs I’ve ever stumbled across in my entire life. I love it to pieces.
It’s crazy too to toggle back and forth across the two versions and think about how they’re both fantastic, both fairly different from each other, and yet are of course very much the same song at core.
In short, hell yes.
“E-Pro” kicks off Guero with a blast and driving blues beat that we end up getting a lot more of – if in a much more stripped-down form – in Modern Guilt (#769), which was released four years later in 2008. On that note, also see “Black Tambourine.”
“Qué’Ondra Guero” is steeped in Beck’s background (he grew up in a diverse neighborhood “near downtown Los Angeles”). It’s a hip-hop track with Latin music flavor rapped in English, with plenty of Spanish thrown in. Side note that I always have a soft spot for this one because my wife likes it so much.
“Rental Car” is a super unique ride of a song, rocking and unusual and fun and surprising. I’d probably bucket it with Midnite Vultures (#278) in terms of its overall vibe.
Some stats & info about Beck – Guero
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Dance Music, Alternative Rock, Alternative Pop
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Guero released? 2005
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #174 out of 1,000
Beck’s Guero on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Beck’s Guero that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Hell yes, now I’m moving this way, I’m doing this thing. Please enjoy.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.