I was going to write some Beck-related entry yesterday, but just didn't find the time for it. We could pretend that this blog was protesting SOPA, but I'm not sure that'd fly. Which is fine, because I'll just say that I was building up energy for today's topic: My favorite Beck album.
Let's talk about Odelay.
I still remember the very first time I heard "Where It's At." Up to this point, I recognized Beck as the guy who sang that "Loser" song that had been popular a year or two earlier. However, in my early teens, I had dismissed "Loser" as a humorous novelty song and not the slacker anthem that teens older than me probably saw it as. Beck was in the rear view mirror now, and I figured that was his one and only moment in the spotlight.
My family was listening to the radio while driving down town when "Where It's At" came on. None of us knew the song and none of us knew what to make of it. My parents, my father especially, mocked the song and dismissed it as some horrible rap song. I, on the other hand, really liked it. I didn't know what it was. Rock? Rap? The accidental recording of robots throwing a party? I just knew that I really liked it. This was different than the Smashing Pumpkins, Green Days and Oasises (Oasai?) that my limited music access had introduced me too.
The fact was, once I discovered Beck's Odelay, I realized that it filled a niche that nothing else seemed to be filling. Up until this point, I was mostly just listening to "rock" bands while only reading about bands that were working outside of the typical rock "box" like Primal Scream, Guided by Voices and Pavement in magazines like Spin. In my rural home, close to the middle of nowhere in the pre-internet era, the likelihood of actually hearing bands like them seemed slim.
Odelay, to me, was different. This was the sound of the future. If, before hearing the album, someone had asked me what the most ideal would sound like, I'd probably describe something very similar to what Odelay sounded like: genre-boarder-crossing, occasionally chaotic, occasionally soulful, exciting, experimental and unlike anything else I had yet to hear.
It still manages to surprise me to this day. Considering that the rest of the 90s and early 00s were spent ripping off Odelay, the album shouldn't sound as fresh and rewarding in hindsight, but it still does. Meanwhile, the imitators and bands inspired by it have dwindled away (does anyone still remember, or care about, bands like Citizen King or Hesher?).
Like I said for Mutations earlier this week, it's Odelay as a whole that meant something to me greater than it just being an album. For me, it was literally life changing. It inspired me to break out of the "normal" limitations I set for myself in aspects of my life. I wanted to make art that was weird and multi-tiered. I wanted to listen to music that couldn't be defined with one word. I wanted to embrace things that were outside of the culture I had known up to that point. Bands like the aforementioned Smashing Pumpkins and Green Day were what got me listening to music in the first place. Beck and Odelay was what made a devoted fan of music and inspired me to always be seeking out new bands and sounds. It was Odelay's influence that lead me to discover bands like Sonic Youth, Stereolab, Pizzicato Five and even acts like Wilco and The Flaming Lips.
But for all the talk of how good the album itself is, there isn't an album without the songs. The songs of Odelay are all fantastic, every one of them. Every song has meant something to me at one time or another. Early in my obsession with the album, I related most to the singles: the rocking and mysterious "Devil's Haircut," the junkyard hip hop funk of "Where It's At," the retro-tinged weirdness of "The New Pollution." Later, I found myself immersed in the energetic weirdness in songs like "Minus" and "Novacaine," which was a staple for almost every mixtape I ever made a friend.
Getting older, songs like "Jackass" and "Ramshackle" spoke to me more, and acted as a sign of what would come later in albums like Mutations, Sea Change and even the second half of Guero.
I had the chance to re-evaluate the album two years ago with the remastered and expanded version of the album. I was expecting to listen to it and find myself tired of the album or to be uninterested in the B-Sides and outtakes from the time it was created. Instead, I was reminded of not only how good the album was, but important it was to both the "alternative" and "indie" music histories.
There isn't another album like Odelay. Interestingly enough, even though Beck has always had a knack for allowing each album to sound differently, he comes closest to revisiting the atmosphere of the album with Guero, right down to using the same production team. Even then, while not a bad album, it fails to capture the same charm and spontaneous what-the-hell-is-coming-next attitude that Odelay has.
To wrap up this rambling mess, this will forever be the end-all/be-all for Beck music. The defining moment in his career and my musical fandom when everything was completely perfect. Best Beck album ever? Try, best album period.
Tomorrow: Not my favorite Beck album, but one that I have learned to respect so much more as an adult than as a teenager.
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