Label – DGC, Bong Load Custom
Produced by Beck Hansen,The Dust Brothers,Mario Caldato Jr.,Brian Paulson,Tom Rothrock,Rob Schnapf

“Odelay”, Beck’s second major label long player is possibly the greatest exercise in losing a tag and gaining a new audience at the same time. It’s fair to say that the slacker anti folk character of 1994s “Mellow Gold” didn’t sit comfortably with the artist, and so, with the valued help of two rising producers (The Dust Brothers) Beck concocted an album literally jam packed with samples and styles that covered almost every modern genre of music. To mesh folk, rock, hip-hop, blues and pop into one cohesive collection shows not only Mr Hansen’s resolute confidence in his abilities, but perfectly highlights an artist who can conquer conventional classifications and yet still create a magically cohesive set of songs. It feels carefree, and yet one knows that every move is studiously planned, and although there is at times little clarity in the lyrics, Beck provides us with some sensational instrumental melodies and powerfully energised rhythms. The Dust Brothers took the plaudits for their groundbreaking work with The Beastie Boys on “Paul’s Boutique” and now perfectly reproduce the bizarre samples, the odd percussion instruments and the enthralling musical textures.

The tight garage rock riff that opens “Devil’s Haircut” sets the tone with a huge rhythmic element, driving Beck’s semi nonsense lyrical input which apparently references the rock star’s self perception in both his and the fans minds. “Hotwax” is even better as it begins as a country blues tune and then out of nowhere introduces a stylish breakbeat groove, and a pretty convincing white boy rap. “The New Pollution” is brilliantly built around a long forgotten sax refrain from Joe Thomas’s “Venus” as rhythms energetically dance around its languid melody. Beck’s words parody the age old caricature of the dangerous woman (“She can talk to the mangling strangers, She can sleep in a fiery barn, Throwing troubles to the dying embers”). The sweet and mellow folk of “Jack-ass” preludes anything from 2002s “Sea Change” and seems serenely restrained until the closing Ass noises that directly lead into “Where It’s At” firing off odd samples which include Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony #8 in b Minor”. Often disregarded, but still as vital is the garage rocker “Minus” which should seem an odd fit amongst the rest of this collection, and yet its surge of violent energy seems to mould in perfectly.

For all the musical shifts that Beck has employed throughout his career, “Odelay” is the biggest scrambled mess of ideas, technical ingenuity and confident exuberance one could ever encounter. Every sense tells you it shouldn’t work, and yet Beck (with more than able support from The Dust Brothers) pulls off a near miracle of alternative music.

9/10

1 Devils Haircut 3:14
2 Hotwax 3:49
3 Lord Only Knows 4:14
4 The New Pollution 3:39
5 Derelict 4:12
6 Novacane 4:37
7 Jack-Ass 4:11
8 Where It’s At 5:30
9 Minus 2:32
10 Sissyneck 3:52
11 Readymade 2:37
12 High 5 (Rock the Catskills) 4:10
13 Ramshackle 7:29

Devil’s Haircut

The New Pollution