Beck!: On a Backwards River: The Story of Beck

by Rob Jovanovic

A rock journalist takes readers behind the music of Beck and into his life as the grandson of an avant-garde Fluxus movement leader, the son of a bluegrass musician who worked with Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, and his own accomplishments in the music industry.

Genres: Music

294 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Tiny Red Dragons Radio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally think that an argument could be made that Beck is the most significant artist to come out of the 1990s. Jovanovic is apparently a big fan as well and one of this book's only faults is that the author seems to fanboy out a little too much for my taste. This book lacks objectivity and the author even takes some pointless jabs at a few musicians for no particular reason (really, you're gonna knock Prince? Yeah this book was published 15 years ago but come on! It's retroactively too soon! [or something])

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy and appreciate the book because I did. Jovanovic exhaustively details Beck's career up until the release of Midnight Vultures. The last 100+ pages are an extremely detailed catalog of all of Beck's releases/setlists/videos, ect.

If you're a fan of Beck's it's worth the read. I would love to see an updated version with info from the last 15 Years of Beck's career. (This review originally appeared on my personal Good Reads page: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/9...)

-Jeff

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally think that an argument could be made that Beck is the most significant artist to come out of the 1990s. Jovanovic is apparently a big fan as well and one of this book's only faults is that the author seems to fanboy out a little too much for my taste. This book lacks objectivity and the author even takes some pointless jabs at a few musicians for no particular reason (really, you're gonna knock Prince? Yeah this book was published 15 years ago but come on! It's retroactively too soon! [or something])

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy and appreciate the book because I did. Jovanovic exhaustively details Beck's career up until the release of Midnight Vultures. The last 100+ pages are an extremely detailed catalog of all of Beck's releases/setlists/videos, ect.

If you're a fan of Beck's it's worth the read. I would love to see an updated version with info from the last 15 Years of Beck's career.

[Roland · Rating 3 out of 5]

On one hand, there aren't many biographies on Beck, so I should appreciate the fact that this book even exists. However, Jovanovic's book is not only short (half of the book is biography, while the other half is a listing of Beck's videos, songs, and concerts), but also has a surprising number of typos, is overly fanboyish, and takes a number of potshots at other artists that come out of nowhere. For instance, the author spends an entire page bashing Prince for no reason. Really...this digression comes out of nowhere and just keeps going. Also, I'm a huge Beck fan, and have been following his career on and off ever since first catching Loser on MTV, so I know a thing or two about the artist, and I'm shocked at how much was left out of this book. The book touches on The Banjo Story, but almost completely sweeps past Beck's debut album Golden Feelings and leaves out the dozens of tapes Beck made early in his career that have been floating around fan circles for years. He barely mentions Fresh Meat and Old Slabs, but ignores tapes such as We Like Folk...Who Cares...Destroy Us, Buck Fuck Iowa, Beck Like the Beer, and Don't Get Bent Out of Shape. We get the story behind the One Foot in the Grave album, but Stereopathetic Soulmanure, easily Beck's strangest CD release, is only mentioned in passing. I learned a bit about Beck through reading this book, and I got a kick out of seeing a fellow collector mentioned in the acknowledgements (hello Chonk), but unless you're a diehard fan, you're not going to get much out of this book.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Billed as the first biography about one of my favourite musicians, Beck Hansen, this is a brief account of his career up to the time of the Midnite Vultures album, told mostly through gathering together various statements from interviews given over the years.

Beck came from an artistic background. His father was a bluegrass musician and arranger, his grandfather on the maternal side was a member of the Fluxus art movement, which involved Yoko Ono and had ties with Andy Warhol.

When I first heard Beck I liked him, but I didn't catch on to all he could do. To me he just sounded like a fun but rather facile mixture of Delta blues and dorking around.
Then he added the beats, and I loved him.

I enjoyed reading the little section about the New York 'anti-folk' scene that Beck was briefly part of before he broke out, one of those memorable but fleeting happenings that made waves but went largely unrecorded, like the Cleveland punk scene fifteen years previous.

It was only a short glimpse though, like everything here; the book clocks in at just under three hundred pages, but fully half of it is merely discography, concert listings, TV appearances etc.

I can't agree with Jovanovich's view that Beck would go on to surpass Prince though. Maybe it seemed like that for all of five minutes in the year 2000 when this was published, but I doubt it. Comparisons between them are only superficial anyway.
Also, Beck is very talented and all that, but if any pop singer can be considered a genius then Prince is probably the one.

Jovanovic does also provide brief descriptions of all of Beck's recorded songs by that time, but he doesn't shed much insight. I prefer Beck's own explanations, though in typically cryptic style they tell you nothing at all!

Here is his synopsis of the song 'Minus' from the Odelay album:
"It's a sort of muxture between a Korean business meeting and the movie Carrie"

Indeed.

[Tanner Mcdavid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Was A Great Book. Probably Because It's One Of The Biographies Of Someone I Actually Find Interesting And I Like. He's Such A Weird And Interesting Person. There Were Pictures In The Middle Of The Book Which I Thought Was A Good Idea Cause It Was A Good Way Of Expressing Someone's Life. I Love His Music And The Story Of His Life And How He Made It To The #1 Hit "Loser" That Was Aired On MTV A Lot And How He Made To The MTV Interview With Thurston Moore On His Show. Needless To Say, One Of My Favorite Biographies.

[Leftoverking · Rating 4 out of 5]

i enjoy the man's music, and found this book to be an interesting insight into the artist's eclectic background.

[Kyle O'Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the book, however, it's a little bit deceiving because the last half of the pages are composed of indexes and lists.