The Review

It’s been almost 20 years since Prince put the idea into our heads about partying like it’s 1999, but no one has stepped forward this year with the right knockout album to let us get on with the merriment.

Until now.

The main question raised by the weekend’s Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival was whether the ambitious two-day affair was rewarding enough to make us root for a “second annual” tag. But that verdict will have to wait, because most of Sunday’s music came after Calendar’s press deadline.

The search for the millennium party album, however, may have ended here Saturday.

Closing the more than 10-hour concert with a spectacular performance on the festival’s main stage, Beck previewed material from his upcoming “Midnite Vultures” album, and it radiated with the joyous “let’s go crazy” spirit that Prince outlined in the early ‘80s.

If the artist whom Beck has been most often compared with until now is Bob Dylan because of their shared folk music backgrounds and literary imaginations, it was Prince who came more quickly to mind during Beck’s new R&B; and funk-minded tunes.

In the new numbers, which are typical of the tone of the “Vultures” album, due next month, Beck employed some glorious R&B; textures, including teasing falsetto touches. And the subject matter, fittingly, is mostly sex and obsession. The slender performer even wore a flamboyant fringed shirt a la Sly Stone, and made lots of Princian dance moves.

The new emphasis shouldn’t be a total surprise. Despite his early folk and rock leanings, Beck has long shared a fondness for aggressive hip-hop strains, notably in “Where It’s At,” his 1996 salute to the “two turntables and a microphone” culture. He also has been showing evidences of his R&B; fascination in his live shows.

Just in case the audience Saturday hadn’t been paying attention, however, he surrounded the new songs with earlier tunes, which he dressed in more obvious R&B; arrangements than in their original album versions.

Backed by a large group of musicians, including three horn players and two female backup singers, Beck opened with “Novacane” and “The New Pollution,” both from his 1996 “Odelay” album.

After that calling card, Beck went into the new “Sexx Laws” with the scorching, sensual force of a legendary ‘70s Stax Records recording. The song is filled with all sorts of playful images, nervously acknowledging the power of lust on our sometimes fragile sensibilities.

The horn-driven “Mixed Bizness” is another outrageous fantasy, while “Debra,” Saturday’s standout new tune, is a tale of romantic obsession that is filled with the detail and dark humor of Randy Newman’s most memorable accounts of the human condition.

The show and the new album are a daring stylistic move--and Beck, blessed with a captivating blend of innocence and perfectionist drive, is one of the few artists of the modern pop era gifted enough to pull it off without sounding contrived.

A full review of the weekend festival will appear in Tuesday’s Calendar.