Mutations

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The gulf between those two says a lot about Beck (and also about what some critics like to champion, but that’s a discussion for another day), but its also what makes him so hard to pin down. He had become such a shorthand for “Smart But Accessible Alt-Culture Figure” that MillerCoors even shamelessly ripped off his whole steez for a beer campaign based around a slacker character named Dick. It is a question that has vexed philosophers, by which I mean people who perhaps overthink popular music, for 25 years now: Who is the real Beck? The whole album feels slightly melancholy, which is no bad thing because it makes it more atmospheric, I gave it five stars because although it sounds derivative I think the production makes it original and unusual. It's definitely worth tracking down for the 'Every little nook and cranny Beck did in the 90s' collector.

But while Beck is a scholar of music, he’s never been content with merely reproducing his record collection. After the tour for Odelay wound down, Beck recruited Nigel Godrich for his major work after helming Radiohead’s OK Computer, the other huge era-defining alt-rock album of the late ’90s. He would follow that up with Sea Change, the Serious Album that many other people would consider his true masterpiece. Mutations would prove that Beck could do sincerity, or at least Sincerity, just fine thank you very much, and the woozy, operatic country rock he summons here in many ways feels like a blueprint that Mike Mogis and Conor Oberst would follow with Bright Eyes, where the slowly unraveling ballad “Static,” tucked all the way at the end of the album, feels like Beck’s big budget answer to the delicate balladry Cat Power and Elliott Smith were getting up to, declaring “it’s a perfect day to lock yourself inside” as the guitar solo shrugs and the keyboard lines evaporates. However, when Geffen executives heard the album, they reneged on their agreement and released the record.The original plan was that Bong Load Records, the tiny Los Angeles label that first released Beck’s breakout “Loser” would also release Mutations.

It is possible that Beck knows when he sings in a strained falsetto about wanting to nail your sister, he knows he’ll get a laugh, and that he knows when he sings in a resigned lower register about feeling “unmoved, untouched, unglued” in “Cold Brains,” he knows he’ll get a sigh of recognition from anyone that has ever felt sad and unmoored (which is to say, anyone), and he’s a skillful enough performer that he knows how to hit both marks. Full disclosure, I have mixed feelings about the SHM-CD format, primarily that it seems nothing more than a cash grab, but this HDCD encoded edition is surprising in how good it sounds.Beck appeared on Saturday Night Live in promotion of Mutations, performing "Tropicalia" and "Nobody's Fault but My Own". But honestly, this is probably because of the album highlight “Nobody’s Fault But My Own,” which finds Beck beating himself up over unspecified mistakes over a sea of psychedelic strings that could have been sampled from Rubber Soul. Though less commercially successful than the preceding Odelay, it won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

But listening to Mutations today, I think what the album tells us is that even when he’s trying to be serious, Beck is still a playful guy. In fact, one of the nifty tricks of Mutations is how it sounds simple upon the first listen, then reveals more psychedelic layers upon each play. Beck Hansen has had one of the most interesting and singular career arcs of any musician of his generation, and his sixth album, Mutations, marked a turning point in a catalog filled with turning points. O Maria” might revolve around an oddly moving couplet that signifies the need to grow up already (“Everybody knows/ the circus is closed”) but it glides by on a ’60s melody that feels cloned from Donovan.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. It is less experimental than some of his work, which suits me because although I always admire his originality I prefer tunes to random noises. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Why are ruminations on why guilt is both comforting and self-defeating any more or less valid than riffing on pop culture over the sickest drum break you can afford to sample?

No videos were made for the album, and aside from appearing on Saturday Night Live, Beck did little to promote it, but such was his stature at the time that the album eventually went platinum and won Best Alternative Music Album Grammy. It is blues-influenced and he sings moving lyrics about heart ache and the sadness of life, themes which fit his voice perfectly. Beck, IMO, is a musical and lyrical genius and not only are his songs parts of a greater whole on each album, each album is a part of the greater overall collection.It is kind of fatalistic and yet somehow makes you feel that you can survive the dark times, almost as if you are observing them from the outside. It was a startling turn at the time, the effortlessly cool guy from “Where It’s At” asking aloud, “Pointing a finger, throw the book at you/ And who would want to dance with you? So with Mutations — which turns 20 tomorrow — he made a hard pivot, setting aside his free-associative hip-hop sensibilities for a series of cosmic folk songs that saw him trading Irony for Feelings.