Colors

At times this slick party vibe sounds like Hall & Oates at their least soulful, which is to say the music has an inevitability to it that initially feels fresh, but starts to wear thin when it’s clear the entire album is cut from the same glitzy cloth.

If Beck is Generation X’s answer to David Bowie, then “Colors” is his “Let’s Dance”: an intentionally lightweight, enjoyable mid-career effort with one eye on the dance floor and one on radio playlists. Whether it returns him to his former hitmaker status remains to be seen, but “Colors” definitely succeeds in putting the spring back in Beck’s step.

There are plenty of hooks and the pace rarely relents, but it’s hard to ever imagine Colors ever being in anyone’s top five favourite Beck albums.

You can still hear marginal residue of the man who managed to be compared to both Dylan and Prince within the same five-year period. You just won’t find those comparisons so much lately.

Colors is Beck at his most exuberant, concocting weird, wonderful dancefloor fillers like a mad disco scientist. Good things come to those who wait.

Whether Colors will be a success within the pop world it is clearly aimed at remains to be seen, but one suspects even pop fans will see through this for it appears to be: an album documenting a mid-life crisis.

The glossy production here sometimes neuters Beck's wilder inclinations. ... Still, as his first upbeat album in nearly a decade, Colors proves that Beck is still one of rock's most intrepid inventors. [13 Oct 2017, p.58]

Colors is a breezy, tightly composed party-starter of a record that doesn't demand much of the listener, but gives back generously.

Featuring synthy dance beats, electronic flourish and propellant energy, the record sits alongside similarly infectious endeavors from his impressive discography such as “Odelay,” “Midnight Vultures” and “The Information.”

Save for the grooving, frizzy "Dreams," the ambient alterna-pop/R&B of Colors is sleek, clean and clear. [No. 148, p.53]

It's a messy, vibrant record, and if his palette occasionally blurs into muddiness, at least he's still trying for a rainbow. [Nov 2017, p.102]

The problem with Colors is that where once he innovated, Beck now seems to be imitating the slew of fizzing faceless pop clogging the airwaves buried under a mesh of corporate production.

As a collection of songs, however, Colors is by far Beck’s most upbeat and enjoyable record from front to back since the ’90s. Repeated listens will no doubt be rewarded.

Charging power-pop anthems like I’m So Free and Dear Life agree with his current stature as an elder statesman who can try to keep it cool, except that when he veers into strummy gloss pop (Up All Night, Square One) it makes him sound out of touch.

As both a quintessential entry into his catalog and a striking entry into mainstream popular culture, Colors once again cements Beck as a clever, ever-dynamic and enduring artist.

Beck has been working on Colors since 2013, and by the sounds of a recent interview, spent a lot of time trying to get the balance of “not retro and not modern” just so. He more or less nailed that bit, but what’s lacking from his Big Happy Pop Record is some kind of strong emotion that could elevate these songs above the “well crafted but innocuous” camp--something more than an idea.

This is an album that is more than anything about the joy of making music. It’s not perfect, but it is a joyful, engaging listen, a perfect first step in the “I no longer have anything to prove” phase of Beck’s illustrious career.

Colors is the opposite of The Information. The first time you listen to it, you know its average and you keep listening, begging it to give something that hasn’t had its edges shaved off by a production style that strips all weird aesthetics in favor of aerodynamics that no one wanted and no one will like.

His best uptempo record since Odelay. [Nov 2017, p.109]

Colors suffers for sacrificing personality for immediacy.

The result is his most straight-ahead fun album since the Nineties.

At times, it seems as though Beck is grasping at something, anything, to add conflict and tension to this effusive album. But all he comes up with are the most well-worn of sentimental platitudes.

It’s largely a plainspoken, cohesive work, closer in spirit to single-minded efforts like Morning Phases, Modern Guilt, or even Sea Change. And really, that’s fine.

Colors is a varied and blissful pop album that finds joy in our times, and Beck expectedly makes it interesting and vibrant to experience. He has decided to make something optimistic in the midst of so much unrest, and it succeeds in bringing a celebratory presence to a world that need it

Overall it’s a fun album of two halves. The first half tows the line between the cheesy elements of radio pop that even the snarkiest Slayer fan secretly loves, and some truly inspirational, if not fleeting, compositional substance. The second half, although still very much a fun listen, somewhat strays.

Colors is solid--Beck doesn’t make bad records, whatever mode he’s in--and it flirts with greatness, but he’s at his best when he decides to either get loose or get serious, less so when he drives straight down the

Colors is extreme, featuring some of the best and worst songs that Beck has ever written.

All told, it’s pretty crowded territory, with too many jams.

Beck’s Colors is a musical invitation to a soiree that ultimately lacks both substance and staying power, and is crucially missing the self-awareness that something more important is at stake than merely having a good time.

Infrequently there are bursts of brilliance--the Bowie meets Men at Work-style funk of the title track; Wow’s theatrical reimagining of hip-hop--but happiness does not become the impish shape-shifter.

Colors dispels a greater notion of contemporary selfhood with its sheer tastelessness. It holds status as the most truly perplexing move from the artist to date. Unfortunately, the result of that move is borderline unlistenable.

Colors may be less anarchic than his most famous albums from the 1990s, but he emerges as a studio tinkerer who has grown more disciplined but no less eccentric. [Nov 2017, p.24]