A Beck of a show

Why did alt-rock star Beck choose an unlikely venue -- the not exactly cutting edge Tropicana hotel -- for his one-night-only Las Vegas gig?

Was it, as the hotel's publicist suggested, for its "traditional atmosphere and classic theatre setting"?

Was it, as his tour coordinator suggested, because it's the venue she stays at when traveling here?

Or was it a clever tie-in with the song "Tropicalia," the bossa nova-style single released off his latest album, "Mutations"?

Who knows? Beck's not speaking. Not to us, anyway.

Whatever the reason, Beck Hansen, the 28-year-old singer-songwriter who hit a nerve in 1994 with his Grammy-nominated slacker anthem "Loser," will play to a sold-out crowd in the "Folies Bergere's" Tiffany Theater Thursday night with his band.

Spin magazine, which named Beck its 1997 "Artist of the Year," described his path through the pop charts as "one of the most unlikely sagas in recent history."

The product of an artistic upbringing, Beck is the son of musician Bubbe Hansen, a co-owner of Troy Cafe in Los Angeles, and the grandson of late artist Al Hansen, with whom he shared a traveling art exhibit this year entitled "Beck & Al Hansen: Playing With Matches."

Beck was a high school dropout, working odd jobs and playing coffeehouses in L.A. when his song, "Loser," which was recorded mainly as a goof, was picked up and released by the independent record label Bong Load. Making its way into heavy radio rotation, the single's success led to Beck's release of his debut album, "Mellow Gold" and his follow-up, "Odelay," on Geffen records. In 1997, Beck was awarded two Grammys, one for best alternative performance and the other for best male rock performance.

Fans who didn't land tickets to the sold-out show at the Tropicana will have to be content with Beck's latest album, "Mutations." After that, he will return to the studio, gunning to yet release another album by mid-year.

The Las Vegas show will be a rarity: It is one of only two shows the performer plans in support of this album. The other was an appearance at Town Hall in New York on Sunday, following an appearance on "Saturday Night Live" last weekend.

"I'm not touring," Beck noted in a release. "There'll probably be some random appearances. We don't play live, we just do appearances."

Why he chose Las Vegas, though, isn't clear.

Tropicana publicist Hillary Smoot said that although other more likely venues would have liked to have snagged the concert, Beck actually contacted the Tropicana first.

"Beck choose the Trop because he wanted to play in a classic, Las Vegas, traditional theater," she enthused. "He really liked the (idea) of getting back to traditional Las Vegas and that's what we are."

Considering the artist's propensity for irony and parody, and the fact that the "Tropicalia" is about a decaying resort city, it's hard not to wonder if the singer is making some tongue-in-cheek statement with his choice of venue.

But, as he told Spin last year, he is anxious to put that reputation for cynicism behind him.

"So much of this age group -- and even I've been guilty of this in the past -- takes something that's '70s and twists it aorund, either making fun of it or embracing it," he noted in Spin's January '97 issue. "It's this continual need to goof on something our parents did or that we did 10 years ago. That's something I would really like to move away from."

With his latest album, Beck has convinced critics that he has done so.

The New York Times headlines its review of his album: "A Pop Post-Modernist Gives up on Irony." And Details magazine writes: Beck "may have had a change of heart about singing everything with a smirk."

The new album is also a departure from the hip-hop stylings of his previous works, and a return to a more mellow, sedate folk sound.

"I wanted to make a conscious effort to put some really dainty-ass music on the record," Beck noted in Spin, explaining why he made a stripped-down, "acoustic"-sounding album. "The more delicate side of music is highly ignored and underrated.

"This is the headphone record, more for those mid-afternoon reveries we all enjoy, when we're tumbling through the high green grasses or meadows."

The album is more than just folk: It includes a variety of musical styles from blues to country western, even employing a 1,200-year-old harpsichord. As Beck told the New York Times, the album is dubbed "Mutations" because "it's trying to embrace the evolution, embrace the impurity of the music."

"Mutations" was scheduled to be released by Bong Load, Beck's independent record label, which has an arrangement with the larger Geffen Music, in which they share rights to release Beck's recordings. After gauging the quality of the work, Geffen decided to pick this up as a major release.

This, despite the fact that the album was recorded in a hurry, taking advantage of a two-week time frame that coveted producer Nigel Godrich had available.

The band, fresh off two years on the road, complied, using mostly backlogged songs Beck had written, and recording live at a frantic pace, laying down almost a song a day.

"I always try to leave in the mistakes -- that's the interesting stuff," Beck notes in a statement. "If somebody walked into the room while you were doing a little falsetto lead and said, 'The burritos are here,' that's the best part. That's the part people will remember."

archive