HYPERSPACE
| Beck
HYPERSPACE
Hyperspace is the fourteenth studio album by American musician Beck. It was released through Capitol Records on November 22, 2019. The album was primarily produced by Beck and Pharrell Williams, as well as Cole M.G.N., Greg Kurstin and Paul Epworth. It was preceded by the release of the lead single "Saw Lightning" on April 15, 2019, the track "Hyperlife", as well as the second single "Uneventful Days" on October 17, 2019, and the third single "Dark Places" on November 7, 2019. - Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Listening to Hyperspace provides a similar experience—sometimes he hits pure signal, and sometimes it’s just background noise as he gets to wherever he’s going next.
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Rollingstone
The alt-pop icon teams up with Pharrell for a revelatory inner-space journey.
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CoS
The songwriter’s past experiments find some cohesion.
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Variety
Again moving left of center, Beck and Pharrell Williams find new life in minimalist, cosmopolitan synth-pop.
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NME
Beck takes on a new cosmic identity with aplomb, roping in Pharrell to achieve pop minimalism that proves there's no sound he can't excel at.
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DIY Magazine
That ‘Hyperspace’ is quite so seamless in its execution is an utter joy.
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musicOMH
Not all of the 11 tracks here strike gold, but they glitter and glow with positivity.
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The Observer
Once the lyrical sorrow and apocalyptic visions hit home, Hyperspace is revealed as a bleak, spacey R&B tour de force.
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CLASH
Overall, it's a glittering, multi-sensory synth-pop record that compels you to let yourself be transported through cosmic dimensions and the rich, textured under-layers of Beck’s creative psyche.
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AV Club
Overall, in spite of its goofy throwback artwork and the presence of Pharrell Williams, Hyperspace belongs on the shelf closest to Sea Change. There are more clunkers here than on that classic, but it feels similarly honest and world-weary.
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The Line of Best Fit
While there’s no memorable poppy chorus here, or lush, full-band arrangements, or zany quirkiness, Hyperspace is nevertheless totally Beck: an experiment in broadening his own horizons, trying something new, which yet again just so happens to sound quite refreshing.
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ALL MUSIC
Beck never lingers upon either his melancholy or his celestial flights of fantasy: they exist simultaneously, resulting in a tremulous and pretty soundtrack for moments of fleeting introspection.
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EXC!AIM
It's a beautifully understated album with subtleties that reveal themselves on repeat listens. Hyperspace isn't quite what fans would expect from a team-up between Beck and the guy who wrote "Happy," and it's better for it.
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PASTE
When he strips everything else away and zeroes in on penning a purely gorgeous song, you can hear the spark that has made him one of the most consistent and creative mainstream artists of the past 25 years. It’s still in there, sometimes you just have to travel through Hyperspace to find it.
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under the radar
Co-produced with Pharrell Williams, Hyperspace leans into Beck's hip-hop fascinations, this time trading the soul samples of his past for mellow SoundCloud rap trends of the 2010s.
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The Guardian
It’s just about enough to keep you browsing, but never enough to inspire.
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INDEPENDENT
While these are enjoyable enough tracks to soundtrack your day, there’s little of the lasting emotion or progression for which we know Beck.
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SLANT
Hyperspace feels inconsequential and incomplete.
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USAToday
Now nearly 30 years and 14 albums into his career, Beck has rarely been better than he is on "Hyperspace," which shoots for the stars with bold production and storytelling that stays grounded with emotional resonance.
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SPILL
With Hyperspace, he explores new but familiar territory, inherent in his alternative rock roots.
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Loud & Quiet
Beck is an artist who just seems at a loss. Worst of all, the element of surprise within past glories, and his joyful surrender to incoherence, has long waned into mediocrity that’s much too keen to please. One wonders if Hyperspace even pleases the man who made it.
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Northern Transmissions
Hyperspace is Beck’s most guest-heavy album. Yet despite his excitement about working with other artists, Hyperspace is not a fun album.
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the Daily Nebraskan
Never before has there been a Beck album this forgettable, and considering what the man is capable of, hopefully there will never be one again. He needs to go back to the drawing board and call this pop-star schtick quits.
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ES.
Intergalactic journey with Pharrell Williams lacks instant hits.
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stereoboard.com
Beck’s 14th studio record follows hot on the heels of his 2017 offering, ‘Colors’, and in many ways acts as a musical response. Where that record was a raucous and bouncy romp through beats and synth riffs, ‘Hyperspace’ is more gloomy, with introspection accompanying retro chill-wave and washy dream pop...plus a lot of the same synths.
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HOT PRESS
The production and the ever-present keyboards and treatments might sound cold on paper, but this is a warm record, which seems to combine the best of analogue and digital. A pretty good trick, but nothing less than you’d expect from the man.
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Sun Genre
The problem here is that the songs themselves feel few and far between. While Beck’s knack for melody and conceptual ingenuity come in handy, it’s no doubt that over the last few years he’s been running out of steam. Every artist slips up occasionally; it’s just harder when it comes from Beck.
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Penn State Commedia
In the future, Beck should continue to pursue this sound. He and Pharrell really have created some magic, but growing on that sound would make this album a much more interesting to listen to through the length of the album and not just the first few songs.
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STARS AND SCARS
Hyperspace certainly stands as one of his most adventurous records in recent years. To quote the man himself, now that’s where it’s at.
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THE FIRE NOTE
Hyperspace, finds Beck fresh from the break up of a long-time romantic relationship, this time the divorce of his 15 year marriage to Marissa Ribisi. Beck gives expression to his sense of loss right from the beginning in “Uneventful Days,” in the lines: “Caught up in these never-mending battle lines/Everything has changed, nothing feels right.” But musically, Beck and producer Pharrell Williams have continued to map out musical territory that was defined more or less with Colors, but with a more forward looking pop energy.
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the musical hype
There’s plenty to like about Hyperspace all said and done.
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sputnik music
A sad and boring end to a fairly solid decade from one of Rock’s brightest creators. Oh well, maybe he’ll wake up next time.
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Pure Grain Audio
With such a powerhouse lineup of writers and features, Hyperspace covers a variety of genres and sounds with a sonic backbone of synthesizers keeping it all in tune with itself.
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the courier
Overall, Hyperspace is an album that will please those who only discovered Beck in the last decade or so, and as far as the synth-pop genre is concerned, Beck is now where it’s at. However, for me it is not one I will revisit often.
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The Sound Board
It’s far from a classic or even likely to be all that memorable beyond the initial hit, but that hit does have moments of real quality, and that’s better than nothing.
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Financial Times
The songs are polished but low-key, with several tracks aiming for the strung-out introspection of a Frank Ocean tune
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Ultimate Guitar.com
It isn't until the album's back half that the songs really start to come into their own, and Beck reveals to us why he's held in such high regard as a songwriter, and if you find yourself dismissing the album based solely on the more "mainstream" sounding tracks, you might want to give some of the other cuts on the album a chance, as there are still quite a few great moments on the album.
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the arts desk
It's the moments where Beck stretches his songwriting muscles that shine best.
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The Goon Report
Beck discovers outer space, and subsequently releases what might be his most humdrum album.
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Brooklyn Vegan
It’s mostly an atmospheric, psychedelic pop album that sounds more like it was produced by Dave Fridmann than by Pharrell.
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Lazy Music guru
There are several Beck albums I have loved and appreciated from the past, but I do not see myself casually listening to this entire project as a whole. There are some amazing tracks on here, but the low points are dreadful and painful to get through at times.
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Entertainment Voice
Beck’s collaboration with Pharell is a match made in, well, hyperspace — a blending of minimalist and maximalist tendencies into a surreal pop extravaganza.
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