Description
That's the great thing about being a written off as a one-hit wonder--it really focuses your mind on making a stunning, no-holds-barred eat-that-you-smug-critics album the year after. It happened with Radiohead, from "Creep" to The Bends; Supergrass, from "Alright" to In It For The Money, and, most notably, with Beck, from
That's the great thing about being a written off as a one-hit wonder--it really focuses your mind on making a stunning, no-holds-barred eat-that-you-smug-critics album the year after. It happened with Radiohead, from "Creep" to The Bends; Supergrass, from "Alright" to In It For The Money, and, most notably, with Beck, from "Loser" to Odelay. As thrilling today as on its release, Odelay is the sound of new musical frontiers being opened up: no-one before had thought to arrange a shot-gun marriage between hip-hop and Bob Dylan before and, as the subsequent slew of poor imitators proved, that was because only Beck could pull it off (with the help of the Dust Brothers, who also produced the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique). "Devil's Haircut" and "New Pollution" warped pop's boundaries on entering the Top Twenty; and "Where It's At" still kicks like a mule in a can-can line. They were calling him "The White Prince" by the end of the year, you know. --Caitlan Moran
Amazon.co.uk Review
As it turns out, Beck isn't just a funny guy with a good blues-rap hybrid novelty up his sleeve--he's a funny guy with a deep understanding of the history of pop music, an unstoppable universalist impulse, and a whole lot of excellent songs up his sleeve. Produced with hyperactive kitchen-sink technique by the Dust Brothers (of the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique fame), Odelay sounds like 60 years' worth of radio at once, but the foundation beneath the flash owes more to pre-war blues than anything else. Beck can turn a surreal pomo phrase like nobody's business, and he knows a good drum break when he hears one; his greatest strength, though, is having enough respect for tradition to make it sound modern. --Douglas Wolk
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Performed by
Track listing1. Devil's Haircut
2. Hotwax
3. Lord Only Knows
4. New Pollution
5. Derelict
6. Novacane
7. Jack Ass
8. Where It's At
9. Minus
10. Sissyneck
11. Readymade
12. High 5 (Rock The Catskills)
13. Ramshackle
14. Diskobox
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