Word: odelay
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...linchpin line of "Loser" was "chokin' on the splinters." The album captured a miserable white-trash vibe within a sample- and distortion-laden sound that reeked of personal "Beercan" experience. It was a slightly grating album that was heavy on engineering but still naive--or at least straightforward. With Odelay and now Midnite Vultures, Beck has left these Mountain Dew-soaked roots for something more rarefied and cosmopolitan. Even his voice seems to have gotten higher. Grooviness has replaced grit, and Beck has moved from the wood-paneled periphery of the music industry to its hollow matrix-like core...
...sizable wake of Odelay, electronic bleeps and samples became downright universal in pre-millennial pop music, from groove laden trip-hop to the latest Natalie Imbruglia pop confection. What could Beck do to follow up his inspired, trendsetting hodgepodge? Judging from his modest Mutations, he slacked off, mellowed out and indulged himself rather than delivering another jolt of noise for the twenty-first century. The album is awfully pleasant, even affecting, with the rich twang of slideguitars, the whine of a harmonica and theoccasional exotic instrument imported to shakethings up a little. Beck is nearly as playful asever...
Certainly, Mutations will not disappointany Odelay fan. Joyful juxtapositions arestrewn throughout the album: harmonicas andharpsichords, slide guitars and synthesizers,rural blues and robotic buzzes. The musicalcanvas, as on Odelay, is rich and broad.Yet, the mellowness of the album dampens theclimate of carefree experimentation struggling toemerge. Even the song titles--"Static," "LazyFlies," "Dead Melodies"--indicate the vibe ofdeflated indolence that restrains the album fromexploding with fresh ideas. Lyrics onMutations exchange the trenchant absurdistinsights of Odelay for a strained maturityand faux wisdom, as when Beck writes, "Doldrumsare pounding/Cheapskates are clowning this town."The belabored cuteness of the imagery and Beck'sstilted delivery...
Ironically, Beck only recovers the exhilaratingintensity of Odelay on the energetic bonusmusic hidden at the end of the disc, whererockabilly folk, distorted guitars, space-agesynthesizers and percussive clutter suddenlyconverge into startling vividness, the first ofBeck's mutations of rock on the album truly tolive and breathe...
...hardly be accidental that this brilliantmusical thunderbolt occurs after the album hasofficially ended. Mutations, Beck implies,is no monumental sequel to Odelay; theseMutations are just enjoyable moments on theway to the Next Big Thing. The real second datewith Beck Hansen, so to speak, is still to come.If this album isn't Odelay: The Return,perhaps it shouldn't have to be. The loose soundof Mutations has its own ample pleasures:unpretentious, old-fashioned, out-of-tune, like anamusing detour off the highway across America. Thetumultuous vanguard Beck created on Odelaywill still be there, hopefully, when he goeshunting...