The Information

Beck and Godrich began The Information in 2003, alongside Beck's work on Guero, and finished in 2006. Beck built a studio in his garden where many of the tracks were written. Godrich had said he wanted to make a hip-hop record, and Beck described the result as bringing together the hip-hop songs and the introspective mood of Mutations and Sea Change. He called the process painful, as though they made the album three times, meeting each year to cut what felt trite.

The album came with a blank sleeve and booklet and one of four sticker sheets so that buyers could make their own cover. Because the concept was seen as a retail gimmick, it was ruled ineligible for the UK Albums Chart. Beck and his friends shot low-budget green-screen videos for every song with a $100 eBay video mixer and put tracks and videos on his website months before release. Nausea was the first single in North America, Cellphone's Dead the first in the UK with a video by Michel Gondry, and Think I'm in Love the second and final single. A deluxe version followed on 27 February 2007. It reached number 7 in the United States, 6 in Canada and 31 in Australia, and sold 434,000 copies in the United States by July 2008. The Guardian ranked Cellphone's Dead 18th and Nausea 23rd among Beck's songs.