With his new disc, THE INFORMATION, Beck is remixing the term do-it-yourself. Instead of giving fans a premade album cover, he's letting them design their own. Each CD is randomly packaged with one of four sets of funky stickers that you can affix to a blank-grid booklet. (At Beck's concerts, you can fashion a T-shirt with a choice of iron-ons.) To accomplish this feat of democratic art, the singer partnered with design agency Big Active and 20 artists. ''This was a dream come true. It's like getting to create 100 covers instead of one,'' says Beck, who estimates that he's already crafted 30 versions of his own. ''There's no right or wrong way to do it, and that's the point — it's everybody's personal expression.'' EW asked three of Beck's celeb fans to stick up for their artistic side.
MATTHEW FOX
ON HIS DESIGN ''There's a randomness to the stickers and I wanted to put some sort of
tiny little narrative quality to them. It's very simple: I just wanted
it to feel like there was something moving forward and also had this
feeling of the spontaneity, the chance, and the spark of music.''
ON BECK ''He evolves on every album and at the same time he's always recognizable
as Beck. He's really defining his own genre.''
HEATHER GRAHAM
ON HER DESIGN ''It's creative energy flowing out of him.... I pictured him on a
mystical journey through nature to find his creative expression and
reach his feminine side — he has to wander through the mountains and the
clouds and go into a weird pond.''
ON BECK ''He's kind of a genius. I went with my friend to see his concert, and my
friend, who's a musician, just kept saying, 'This is the highest level!'''
JASON LEE
ON HIS DESIGN ''The concept Beck was going for reminded me of a high school notebook,
so I just randomly placed the stickers on it the way I would have in
high school. I wanted it to be really cluttered.... I thought it was
really cool of Beck to let people give him a different look — an eye
patch, sticking out his tongue, a mustache. It's very self-deprecating
of him.''
ON BECK ''He's one of our greatest innovators. Beck has proven that you can be
successful but still be creative and have integrity about what you do.''
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