Beck - Odelay

Beck's a pretty eclectic artist. He raps, sings, does folky songs, rock, and a lot of weird stuff. He samples a bunch of artists on Odelay, and puts all the sounds together to create an album that is both wide ranging and still cohesive in the unique sum of its parts. There are a variety of instruments used and no song sounds much like any other. I don't know how much of it can really be attributed to Beck and how much credit you really have to give to the original artists he borrows from so heavily, which is part of the reason I'm not totally huge on it. Even if he's not responsible for some of the music though, he still put it all together, made plenty of instrumentation on his own, and did all the vocal stuff. The songs are transformed to fit into his style, so it's not just like he took a riff he liked and sang or rapped over it.

The album starts with a great guitar part and trademark repetitive-yet-catchy chorus in "Devil's Haircut". The next track, "Hotwax" has an odd mix of country guitar and electronic scratching. "The New Pollution" is a nice song with some eccentric noises and a smooth sax part sprinkled in. "Novacane" tricks you into thinking it's going to be mellow before busting into the cooler, hard center of the song. "Where It's At" is the single everyone knows, a pretty enjoyable rap-heavy song. "Minus" is probably the fastest-paced song, and a pretty good one. "High 5 (Rock the Catskills)" is one of the stranger tracks, and fairly wandering. "Ramshackle" is another acoustic, slower song to cap off the album in fine form. There isn't that much about Odelay that's truly amazing, but it's a completely solid and enjoyable record the whole way through.