Beck has set a release date for spring for his forthcoming new album.
Following the release of recent singles ‘Wow‘, ‘Dreams‘ and his song for the FIFA soundtrack ‘Up All Night‘, fans have been eagerly awaiting news on his 10th album and the follow-up to the GRAMMY-winning ‘Morning Phase‘ for some time.
Originally pencilled for release in summer 2015, it was then pushed back to a November 2016 release which never materialised.
Now, it has been revealed that the LP will be released this spring in a new interview with The New York Times’ T Magazine.
The album features 10 songs which according to Beck are “simple and uplifting and galvanising, where the spirit moves you, that kind of feeling. Those are the hardest. This new record I focused on that feeling. It’s the easiest to fail at. Or to come off on one hand disingenuous, or on the other hand just trite, or, you know, there’s that fine line between platitude and just the truth. And that fine line between making a big commotion and a bunch of movement and just actual unadulterated joy.”
He continued: “It’s much easier to go out and get really down. There’s a multitude of things that will oblige you in misery in the culture and there’s only so many that will produce true happiness. It’s like comedy. Comedy is harder in that only certain things are going to make you laugh. I think it’s closer to the child nature in us, which the culture, for a lot of reasons, will discourage or crush. Or you mature out of it in other ways. I see it with kids. There’s that age where if you let that personal joyous side of yourself out, it’s almost more vulnerable than being emotionally vulnerable, like if you’re going through something difficult. It’s not the most clever, sophisticated part of you, but it is the most joyous.”
The album is said to be inspired by The Strokes, after Beck performed with them at Hyde Park for British Summer Time back in 2015.
The singer also revealed that he once nearly wrote a “happy song” for Pharrell Williams but he was beaten to it.
“I remember having this strong feeling that I wanted to work with him,” Beck said. “Ten years before wouldn’t have been the right time. This was the right time. And as I was walking in there, my manager asked me, ‘So what do you want to do? Do you have any songs?’ I was like, ‘I have nothing. Clean slate’.
“All I know is I want to do something that’s really happy.’ I literally walk in, ‘Hey, how are you,’ and we sit down. Pharrell says, ‘I just finished mixing this song, you gotta hear this.’ And he put on ‘Happy.’ It was one of those moments where you laugh to yourself and think, ‘O.K., so maybe we’ll do something else because I think you kinda nailed this one’.”