Beck is far superior in every aspect... well up until they tried to make it dramatic. What is great about Beck is that they ran the full gamut of genres. They covered, to at least a minimal extent, metal, rock, indie rock, rock ballads, rap/hip-hop, pop, jazz, and blues. Now that alone made it worth watching. It is also nice that they focused on the music aspect of it, and why its hard to get signed (image and popularity). You can be a very talented band, but producers will have seen bands similar to you dozens of times, and if they don't think they can market you, you won't get signed. On the other hand you can be less talented and get signed because your image is marketable. Probably my favorite scene is when the guitarist from Belle Ame gets on stage with DyBre, and the singer burns his guitar saying that his music sucks, then calls Koyuki up to sing. Well non-concert scene at least. The concerts were so well done, and they did an amazing job at capturing the energy of a good concert. This is all not to mention that the opening credits "Hit in America" by Beat Crusaders is just an amazing song, and you can actually understand the english really well. In fact, other than the characters speaking, the music that was done in english was all pretty top notch. I definitely prefer it to the dubbed versions, just for the sheer energy of the Japanese seiyuu singing. The americans don't convey that same energy. Chiba especially had an amazing seiyuu that had an energy that couldn't be matched by the american VA.
K-ON on the other hand had like 2 good musical scenes, as opposed to 10 with Beck. And was more about moe and looking cute than the music. It is a shame too, because I was expecting more "God Knows..." from Haruhi, considering the same company was in charge. But alas, I did not get my wish. I mean the few musical scenes were not bad, but not nearly on the same level as Beck. Hell, they had the Japanese talents make their own OST of the songs in Beck, aside from the songs sung by the seiyuu in the regular OST. (I like Keith better than Beck, such an amazing OST). Also... Beck had so so so many references to great music. Yngwei Mart, dropping names like Steve Vai, the ending credits featuring great musicians, the tribute to Cobain at the end... Everything about Beck just screamed "we love music, and we want you to feel our passion." I even smiled when they mentioned that the Stones played snooker before every show. Though it is a well known fact they did that, one would not know unless they followed the Stone's interviews, because I couldn't find that out by just Googling it.
