6. Beck :: Mutations

I had Odeley like most before I bought Mutations, but I think the latter had the most effect on my listening tastes. Although Beck had incorporated funk- punk- blues- country- folk- noise- hop into Odeley, it was immediately engaging because it was dangerous and new to me. Now can an album of, according to allmusic, "psychedelic country blues and lo-fi folk" do the same thing? Yes. This proved to me that Beck was an artist, not tied down to his radio success of "Loser" or other tracks some may have initially dismissed as novelties. I had heard "Tropicalia" on the radio, and thought it was really cool. But songs like "Bottle of Blues" may have seemed more challenging compared to the rest of my musical taste at the time. Somehow, the entire album worked for me. And it still does. The highlight is definitely the closing track. While "Static" an awesome song, it is made even more essential by the hidden track (know as "Diamond Bollocks" on the LP version). Probably the most exuberant part of the record, it somehow manages to incorporate some serious harpsichord jamming along with other "typical" Beck instrumentation, including a sample of birds tweeting, a noise breakdown, and a crazy synth outro. Yeah.