Artist – Album: Beck – Mutations
Released: 3rd November 1998
Sounds Like: The genre spanner
Howard Moon: I do many things. I span the genres - they call me the genre spanner.
Vince Noir: Yeah, they call you the spanner...
Getting started on Beck’s back catalogue can be
something of a daunting task for any music fan – over his 20 year career he’s
racked up 11 albums and 40 singles, hopping from style to style on each one
like Howard Moon’s genre spanner. Take a wrong turn as you explore his music
unguided and you could unwittingly find yourself in bossa nova territory, or
stranded in some electro-indie-hip hop no-man’s-land, unprotected against stray
DJ scratches and obscure samples. No one wants that.
Luckily I’ve come up with a cheat, which should help
you to avoid potential pratfalls. Begin with Odelay,
Beck’s seminal 1996 recording. Even here the eclectic varieties come at you
thick and fast, but they’re so well-crafted and brilliant that you should be
immune to them. However, you can – and this is my point – use the songs as springboards into whichever
Beck-osphere is best suited to your particular tastes. For example, if you like
‘Where It’s At’ and ‘High 5 (Rock the Catskills)’ best, then
Midnite Vultures might be the album you turn to next. If the chameleon-esque
approach of ‘Devil’s Haircut’ and ‘The New Pollution’ sit easy with you,
then you’re safe to make the move to Mellow Gold and Guero. If, like me, ‘Ramshackle’ and ‘Jack-Ass’ are your favourites, then the lush sound of Sea Change
and the acoustic Mutations are great albums.
Beck himself revels in the laid back psychedelic
bluesy folk surroundings of Mutations. There’s less need to be the shape-shifting
showman and we’re treated to a more open and reflective individual on the likes
of mandarin-led ‘Nobody’s Fault but My
Own’. Being Beck there’s still a degree of diversity, diving from The
Kinks-inspired ‘Lazy Flies’ to the
Brazilian ‘Tropicalia’ to the bar
room band ‘Bottle of Blues’, but the
changes here seem minor and seamless compared to other albums. The mellow gold
of Mutations is one of the best Beck mutations.
Albumaday... rating: 8/10
1.
Cold Brains – 3:41
2.
Nobody’s Fault but My Own – 5:02
3.
Lazy Flies – 3:44
4.
Canceled Check – 3:14
5.
We Live Again – 3:05
6.
Tropicalia – 3:20
7.
Dead Melodies – 2:36
8.
Bottle of Blues – 4:56
9.
O Maria – 3:59
10.
Sing It Again – 4:19
11.
Static – 5:18
12.
Diamond Bollocks – 6:02
Listen to ‘Cold
Brains’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl-337I6RH0
Also released on the
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