Friday Night Record Party : Beck: Mutations

Beck:Mutations

1998

Geffen Records

Format I Own it On: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Cold Brains 2. Nobody's Fault But My Own 3. Lazy Flies 4. Canceled Check 5. We Live Again 6. Tropicalia 7. Dead Melodies 8. Bottle of Blues 9. O Maria 10. Sing It Again 11. Static 12. Diamond Bollocks

It was excellent getting to listen to all the Beatles albums in a row, but now I'm moving onto Beck's 1998 album "Mutations." A rich varied, psychedelic record that's not entirely unlike...well...The Beatles...

Hot on the heels of the surprise success of "Mellow Gold" and the monster record "Odelay", (both of which I apparently don't own for some reason...) this record was released with little fanfare...But I think that strategy probably helped it, since it's not really a "big hit" kind of record....It's more quiet and experimental than that, there's no wacky hip hop, or samples, but simply a downcast blend of baroque pop, bossa nova, and country-blues; the only time we get straight-up rock is on the hidden track "Diamond Bollocks."

Remember it was the 90's...Hidden tracks were mandatory. What the hell started this 90's craze? The earliest example of a secret song, I can find, is "Her Majesty" on the Beatles "Abbey Road"....But, thinking back, I think the whole "Hidden track after X minutes of silence" technique might have started with "Endless, Nameless" on Nirvana's "Nevermind." That was a pretty big deal at the time...I can clearly recall listening to the radio one morning and hearing an announcement on the radio that an extra song had been found on "Nevermind." That was like the Moon Landing of my generation...

File:NirvanaNevermindalbumcover.jpg

Soon the hidden track was everywhere, and then bands started to get even more and more wacky and over-the-top with the idea...Culminating in the infamous "pre-gap" hidden track, where you have to hit the rewind button as soon as you put the CD to hear a super-hidden song...Off the top of my head I remember hearing pregap hidden tracks on Less Than Jake's "Losing Streak" and 311's "Transistor." Who knows...maybe there's a hidden track at the end of this blog entry...See if you can find it (I bet you can!) .

File:Losing streak album cover.jpg

Wait, I forgot what I was talking about...

Oh yea..."Mutation" by Beck...Anyway, it's a subtle and complex album that took a few listens to sink in for me, but now I'm confident in saying this is his best album....I can remember people who were suddenly surprised at the tenderness of "Sea Change" but when I heard it I kind of shrugged my shoulders because I had already heard him do it better on "Nobody's Fault But My Own."The only difference really, is that the lyrics on "Sea Change" are a bit more straightforward. Beck still uses his scrambled lyrical style here, and it's quite effective....On the previous albums his lyrics came across as a particularly fun game of slacker mad-libs, and although he uses the same style here, he's successfully adjusted the tone...

"The trawlers drift by
they're chewing dried meat,
House of disrepute,
the dust of opiates
and syphilis patients
on brochure vacations..."

...and as a result they take on the character of a half-remembered nightmare...

Here are some other half-remembered nightmares from 1998:

Patch Adams...

Swing Revival (Here's a fun game...Can anyone name a single good band with a stand-up bass since 1959? I understand the answer to this riddle is 100% subjective, but nonetheless, your answer is wrong...)

Savage Garden

Sorry to trudge up memories best left suppressed, but I think if we work through it we can eventually overcome 1998 together...here's some happy memories from 1998....