Odelay

Mellow Gold Far more than a novelty jester, Beck is a musical anarchist and bummed-out street prophet whose audience will squirm and thrill to the slacker delta blues of "Whiskeyclone" and urban nightmares like "Truckdrivin Neighbors Downstairs." --Jeff Bateman	Mutations It's unfortunate how much attention has been paid to how this album was recorded--quickly, without the same level of studio fuss that marked Beck's breakthrough album, Odelay. That's a shame because our favorite chameleon has pulled the neatest trick of all: he's dropped the lyri...	Guero Now that Beck has effectively exorcised his personal demons with 2002's hyperconfessional Sea Change, he can get back to the business of being a total fruit loop. We all know what that involves: videogame sound effects, random shouting in Spanish, and rhymes about popsicles and v...	Sea Change Beck is bummed. Really bummed. And if song titles such as "Lost Cause," "Lonesome Tears," "Already Dead," and "Nothing I Haven't Seen" don't make the point, his achingly sad lyrics and Sea Change's unerringly downcast sound do. While 1998's Mutations--arguably the singer-son...	Midnite Vultures When Beck mangles folk, hip-hop, country, blues, and lo-fi rock into a unique sonic species, he pays homage to his influences in a way that is utterly entertaining. Indeed, the alt-rock vagabond is responsible for some of the 1990s' most indispensable music. In his lesser moments...
The Information On The Information, Beck Hansen is seriously bummed out. Not that he sounds it as much as he did on 2002's laconic, Fred Neil-worshipping Sea Change. Technology and stuff, and the way it gets in the way of human interaction, is the subtext if not the full-on concept at play here....	Modern Guilt In the last few years, Beck has freely sailed the seas of electronic and alternative music, but he is now back on land with Modern Guilt, an album that gravitates mostly toward electronic music and that, unfortunately, only has a couple of songs that really stand out ("Modern Gui...	OK Computer Radiohead's third album got compared to Pink Floyd a lot when it came out, and its slow drama and conceptual sweep certainly put it in that category. OK Computer, though, is a complicated and difficult record: an album about the way machines dehumanize people that's almost entire...	In Rainbows Pink Bowl 6 1/8"	The Bends While Radiohead saw its stock rising in 1994, it wasn't until 1995's The Bends that it really became a blue chip band. And for good reason. The quintet honed its talent for bombastic Brit Rock, yet still preserved an edge of unpredictability. Even singles like the title track did...

My fortunate introduction to Beck
After years of absorbing classical and jazz, I have recently begun to gain an education in other styles of music. I had not heard of Beck prior to having it recommended to me. I am so glad I picked up this album! The sounds, the revolutionary ideas, the crazy songwriting... all come together to make this an amazing album. I am not an expert in this music, so I will leave the detailed, long-winded reviews to those that know what they are talking about. I like it!

Rightfully praised modern masterwork of distorted grooves
Long considered pioneering white-boy, fusion-funkster-extraordinaire Beck's masterpiece, Odelay may in fact be the greatest summation of this man's dirty pop, distinctly reeling in his dance, rock, funk and experimental sides in the most cohesive and accessible disc of his career to that date by far. Some selections might have grown a tad tiresome over the decade, lacking the truly scuzzy heart of another masterpiece of his, the previous lo-fi odyssey Mellow Gold, or the production wit of Midnight Vultures...but in the end captures this influential modern artist at his commercial and creative crossroad best.

Wait for Deluxe reissue
If you plan on buying this, be aware that there is a deluxe edition coming out January 29, 2008. This will have the original album plus 2 tracks on the first cd. the second cd will have b-sides and remixes. It will probably cost around 25-30 bucks.

(4.5 stars) "That was a good drum break..."
Beck's second album is often called his masterpiece, and I'm not arguing much. Like last time out, he often succeeds in bridging the gap between rap and everything else, most notably rap, surf-rock and techno on the amazing yet stupid "Devils Haircut" (with lyrics that mock death-metal), and rap, jazz, and soul on the brilliant, sample-laced hit single "Where It's At", which to many is Beck's shot at artistic credibility. But it's every bit "goofy novelty" as "Loser". Let us not forget that a lot of samples on the song are from an obscure sex-ed record. Yeah, that's mature. Thankfully, I can't praise the song enough: the samples are amazingly integrated into the song, the organ is beautiful, and every time I hear the song, I pick up on something I previously missed. Plus who can forget that chorus? "I got two turntables and a microphone!" He also pumps out a couple very solid alt-rockers, like the nerdy "Hotwax" and "New Pollution", which ends in an unforgettable sax loop. And just to prove his eclectism, he throws in some odd material like the Eastern drone "Derelict" and the impossible-to-classify, overbearing "Novocain", which has turntables, buzzing guitars, hip-hop drums, R&B horns, bass, electric piano, and vocals all going at more-or-less the same time. To me, that's where the album caves in - it's like he was trying to show us just how much noise he could pack into four-and-a-half minutes. This is redeemed by the ironically beautiful (or should I say ironic beauty?) of "J*cka**", a very lovely song with a title that suggests just the opposite. Confused? So am I. But there are times when I think only Beck knows what he's intending. It contains a deadly accurate Dylan harmonica interpretation, provided by Them (it's a sample of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" - again, seamlessly incorporated!). Continuing on my "Beck-does-everything!" thread, "Minus" is a solid bit of sludgy hard rock, and the humorous "Sissyneck" is entertaining country-funk. Yes, that's right, country-funk. And "High 5 (Rock the Catskills)" is the closest thing to pure rap I've ever heard Beck do. Well, up until that weird classical loop that he throws in just for the sake of throwing it in. And then turns around and delivers heavy guitars. Okay, forget what I said about pure hip-hop. It's a super song, though - that spoken part at 2:40, after those weird samples, is funny, all right. And unexpected. I'm unsure what I think of "Ramshackle", though: it's pretty and well-written, but it's kinda boring and has a kinda crappy hidden track - just a minute of Beck strangling his guitar. Thanks, man! But the songwriting here is exceptional; it's eclectic; and it's packed with all kinds of weird surprises. And Beck's a capable multi-instrumentalist, adding guitars (lead, rhythm, and slide), bass, drums, a wide variety of keyboards, and vocals. "Novocain" is horrible, but most the rest is stellar.

"I got two turntables and a microphone."
Beck's a pretty eclectic artist. He raps, sings, does folky songs, rock, and a lot of weird stuff. He samples a bunch of artists on Odelay, and puts all the sounds together to create an album that is both wide ranging and still cohesive in the unique sum of its parts. There are a variety of instruments used and no song sounds much like any other. I don't know how much of it can really be attributed to Beck and how much credit you really have to give to the original artists he borrows from so heavily, which is part of the reason I'm not totally huge on it. Even if he's not responsible for some of the music though, he still put it all together, made plenty of instrumentation on his own, and did all the vocal stuff. The songs are transformed to fit into his style, so it's not just like he took a riff he liked and sang or rapped over it. The album starts with a great guitar part and trademark repetitive-yet-catchy chorus in "Devil's Haircut". The next track, "Hotwax" has an odd mix of country guitar and electronic scratching. "The New Pollution" is a nice song with some eccentric noises and a smooth sax part sprinkled in. "Novacane" tricks you into thinking it's going to be mellow before busting into the cooler, hard center of the song. "Where It's At" is the single everyone knows, a pretty enjoyable rap-heavy song. "Minus" is probably the fastest-paced song, and a pretty good one. "High 5 (Rock the Catskills)" is one of the stranger tracks, and fairly wandering. "Ramshackle" is another acoustic, slower song to cap off the album in fine form. There isn't that much about Odelay that's truly amazing, but it's a completely solid and enjoyable record the whole way through.