Beck – Colors

Have had this since it came out and it sounds phenomenal. Chris Bellman’s initials are in the deadwax. Wide soundstage, awesome bottom end and the mastering really compliments the style of music on the album. My copy has always played clean. Recommended.

As a collection of songs it’s fun and interesting. It is unlike any of Beck’s other albums, which is what you would expect from the chameleon that is Beck. The Sonics of the album are great as well. My only complaint is that the vinyl has a significant amount of surface noise. Good album.

Spotify played Up All Night one time when I was shuffling, I was instantly in love. I was about to get the deluxe 2xLP but the standard version was only 12 bucks on Amazon, I had to grab it. Kept myself without listening to the whole album until the vinyl came to me. I was blown away, what an album! Pop perfection as it's best. My only complaint is that plastic sticker with the album name on it, I wanted to keep it so bad but I messed up when I tried to unglue it.

Got this today - decided to check this out on the strength of the über-catchy "Dreams". Nice packaging - the sexy opaque cherry-red vinyl is housed in a poly-lined inner and the lyrics are in an artfully-designed 2-page booklet.

The German Pallas-pressed wax is flat and fairly quiet, aside from some not-so-inconspicuous rumble audible in between tracks (and a quick pop-like burst of crackles every revolution at the very end of side 2, going into the runout). In fact, every new Pallas pressing I've gotten (the others would be Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin and Hot Rats by Frank Zappa) seems to be consistently rumbly in comparison to records from other plants, despite there not being any orange-peel texture on the record surfaces... perhaps it's a tracking anomaly of the 0.6 mil conical stylus of my AT-91?

Sonically, this is a nice, punchy Chris Bellman master with clear, full bass definition and a strong emphasis on high frequencies - strong enough in fact to perhaps be considered excessive in some parts, but well-balanced enough not to detract from the overall sound quality.

The production overall has a somewhat hot and compressed sound, and some of the songs on side 1 (most noticeably "Dear Life") become quite congested in the loudest/densest sections. Luckily, the mastering is well-done enough that the compression (a common feature of modern EDM) doesn't negatively affect the immediacy and intensity of the whole thing - AT ALL. Overall, I'd even say it trumps Humanz by Gorillaz in of 'jumping out of the speakers'.... despite being on only ONE record. (Some songs are mastered better than others, "Dreams" standing out in particular.)

Simply put, despite those moments of sonic congestion, it doesn't sound repressed or blanketed, unlike some other audibly compressed records I own.

It may not be as airy as some of Bellman's other vinyl masters, such as the amazing job he did on Arctic Monkeys' AM, but given how much of a 'dancefloor-ready' style Beck was going for on this record, I'd say the hot sound is rather well-suited to the overall flair of the music. It's probably more of... you know... a stylistic choice on Beck's part. Audiophiles, don't come here with the expectation of immaculate transparency and clarity of individual instruments - the production is what it is, and it works perfectly fine.

Musically, while longtime Beck fans may be dismayed at the loss of his trademark weirdness with this album, I like this new direction he's going in.... and what can go wrong especially when "Dreams" caught the attention of so many of us when it first came on the radio a few years back? Recommended.