When I first heard news of a forthcoming Beck album, I couldn't help but speculate about how the famously chameleon-like rocker would transform himself next. Initial rumors that Beck was working with producers Dan the Automator and the Dust Brothers were promising, but talk of Beck being unhappy with the songs and new producers being brought in to mix and re-master the album seemed to create a veil of mystery around the then-untitled disc.Two weeks ago, that veil lifted. I read online that the album had been leaked.

I immediately scoured Soulseek, a popular music downloading service, for the new tracks. I spent most of that day in my room, searching for good peer-to-peer connections and waiting for the downloads to complete.

Once I had the entire album, I stayed in my room for another couple of hours to ingest it, learn hooks, deconstruct the songs and find any other news on the Web about the album.

But, in truth, there was nothing truly remarkable about this situation. I had previously downloaded recent albums by Elliott Smith, Radiohead and Wilco months before they were released.

Early leaks of upcoming albums are now the norm, and it's something that artists and record labels just have to deal with. When the last Eminem album leaked two months before it officially hit stores, Interscope Records responded by pushing up the release date several weeks. Jay-Z, U2 and Nelly have all been through similar situations.

But there were a few things very different about this leak. The first that struck me was its lack of a title. Furthermore, the confirmed final tracklist-announced by Beck in response to the leak-showed that the order on the leaked album was totally wrong. And more importantly, the final track listing included songs not in version I downloaded.

But the leaked version of the album, now officially titled Guero, is not in fact the new Beck album at all. I've since heard the album's final version of a killer disco-rap song, "Hell Yeah," and it's safe to say that it doesn't sound anything at all like the Nelly-esque, minimalist leaked version.

For many obsessive music fans, there is still nothing like going to a music store, browsing through the different sections, buying a new CD, smelling it, examining the booklet and the artwork and comparing the look of the album to the artist's previous releases. An album isn't an album until the whole package is done, and that's why this Beck leak jarred me so much.

It's one thing if the music is finished and you find a copy a few weeks before you should. It's quite another when you're hearing music that isn't complete.

So I wonder: Should I have heard these songs? The short answer is "no." As a musician myself, I know what it's like to record songs and then go back and rework entire sections, to add and take away parts, slowly building up songs from a few simple guitar strums.

The process of recording music in this digital, do-it-yourself age of Garageband, Protools and other high-tech home-recording programs is not as simple as it was when Robert Johnson walked into a San Antonio studio and sang all the songs he knew into a can. And for artists using this technology, having their music leaked before completion can be very disturbing and offensive.

It is obvious from Beck's reaction that he did not want Guero to get out yet. The songs I have now are merely the building blocks of what will be released, and they certainly will be useful in a deconstruction of the recording process once the final album is out.

But I have already seen people on the Web writing about the leaked album as if it were the real thing, judging it and discussing how disappointed they are with it. That's like eating a steak that hasn't yet been sauted, or, for us college kids, taking out the ramen noodles 30 seconds too early and swearing off them as a result-don't judge it until it's finished.

On March 29, when the official version of Guero comes out, I'll be skipping around in ecstasy at Newbury Comics and I won't have my iPod with me. I'll have an old CD player so I can begin listening to the album as I walk out of the store. The leaked version has not tempered my excitement for the album's final release.