When Nick Cave released ‘Boatman’s Call‘ it blew me away. I had been a Nick Cave fan for a long time when it came out, but Boatman’s Call felt like something had clicked for Cave and his songwriting had reached a whole new level.

The writing seemed more real, more honest, more personal and therefore more impactful because the emotions rang familiar. From that album forward he seemed to retain what he had found on Boatman’s Call and, for my taste, since then his work has simply gone from strength to strength.

When Beck’s ‘Sea Change‘ came out I had the same feeling - that Beck, already pure genius, had attained new heights.

Both ‘Boatman’s Call’ and ‘Sea Change’ are purported to be albums resulting from break-ups, and perhaps that’s where the raw honesty stems from that makes both albums so damn good.

However, to my disappointement, Beck did not seem to hang on to what he discovered on Sea Change and his next album ‘Guero‘ was a step backwards.

Don’t get me wrong - Guero is still better than most of the crap out there and it grew on me with time, but it initially plays like an assortment of cast-offs from various previous albums.

And now Beck has a new album. The Information .

I wondered if perhaps with Guero out of the way would The Information bring us to new Beckian heights? But the answer is ‘not really’. It may well be a grower, after all I only bought it yesterday, but it didn’t immediately excite or amaze.

Certainly it’s a more solid and coherent album than Guero, but it’s generally familiar Beck sounds with nothing to blow your mind like he has done in the past. But hey, it’s better than Guero which is better than most so that still makes it pretty damn good.

So far my favourite track is the very catchy, simple and effective ‘I think I’m in love’ who’s chorus goes ‘I think I’m in love but it makes me kinda nervous to say so’. Here it is:

Apart from the music, there is another remarkable thing about the album - the cover art. It’s DIY. The cover is a blank math paper type affair, and included with the cd is a sheet of stickers so you can make up your own album art. Brilliant.

If you consider that a significant portion of Beck’s audience will be the type to download music, how do you make a CD desirable? Who wants that plastic taking up real space when the music itself will most likely wind up on your computer and/or mp3 player?

The sticker idea gives the CD a new tangibility and hands-on appeal that gives it back that ‘I want one’ appeal. A quick search on Flickr shows that people have been having fun designing the album cover and sharing their efforts.

The version of the album I bought also comes with a DVD of videos for all the songs - lo-fi DIY type affairs that Beck and pals obviously had a lot of fun putting together, like the video for ‘I think I’m in love’ as seen above.

All in all, I’m glad I bought it - I dished out over 20 bucks for it and I’m not sorry, but I’m still waiting for the next Beck album that will truly blow our heads off.