Mutations

Product Information

It is a question that has vexed philosophers, by which I mean people who perhaps overthink popular music, for 25 years now: Who is the real Beck?

Or maybe Beck is telling you who he is every time he hits the microphone, and if he contradicts himself each time, if he’s telling you that he’s the heartbroken kid and also the goofy dad and also the sex freak and also the guy worried about the end of the world and also the guy who just wants to make you dance, then that’s how we know we can believe him. The whole album feels slightly melancholy, which is no bad thing because it makes it more atmospheric, I gave it five stars because although it sounds derivative I think the production makes it original and unusual. Beck had worked out an unprecedented deal with Geffen Records that would allow him, in theory, to release albums with smaller labels, which is how K Records was able to release his collection of early lo-fi recordings One Foot In The Grave and Flipside released his hodgepodge Stereopathetic Soulmanure the same year as Geffen released his official debut Mellow Gold. Why are ruminations on why guilt is both comforting and self-defeating any more or less valid than riffing on pop culture over the sickest drum break you can afford to sample?Full disclosure, I have mixed feelings about the SHM-CD format, primarily that it seems nothing more than a cash grab, but this HDCD encoded edition is surprising in how good it sounds. Beck Hansen has had one of the most interesting and singular career arcs of any musician of his generation, and his sixth album, Mutations, marked a turning point in a catalog filled with turning points. It was a startling turn at the time, the effortlessly cool guy from “Where It’s At” asking aloud, “Pointing a finger, throw the book at you/ And who would want to dance with you?

The gulf between those two says a lot about Beck (and also about what some critics like to champion, but that’s a discussion for another day), but its also what makes him so hard to pin down. O Maria” might revolve around an oddly moving couplet that signifies the need to grow up already (“Everybody knows/ the circus is closed”) but it glides by on a ’60s melody that feels cloned from Donovan. In fact, one of the nifty tricks of Mutations is how it sounds simple upon the first listen, then reveals more psychedelic layers upon each play. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.But listening to Mutations today, I think what the album tells us is that even when he’s trying to be serious, Beck is still a playful guy. No videos were made for the album, and aside from appearing on Saturday Night Live, Beck did little to promote it, but such was his stature at the time that the album eventually went platinum and won Best Alternative Music Album Grammy. The record's front cover, a picture of Beck tangled in plastic wrap, was taken by the music photographer Autumn de Wilde. Mutations is filled with dozens of tiny little Beckisms, choices only he would make, be it contrasting a wheezing harmonica with sci-fi synth wiggles on “Cold Brains,” undercutting the Beatles-like reverie of “We Live Again” with dread-inducing negative space or spicing his Brazilian-music homage “Tropicalia” with post-modern lyrics about isolation and a noisy sound collage.