I get the sense that amongst critics and fans, Mutations is often considered Beck’s dress rehearsal for his 2002 heartbreaker Sea Change, trying sadness on for size before later going Full Desolation. So with Mutations — which turns 20 tomorrow — he made a hard pivot, setting aside his free-associative hip-hop sensibilities for a series of cosmic folk songs that saw him trading Irony for Feelings. 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?

The production style was very different from that of Beck's previous album Odelay, which was heavily influenced by hip hop music and contained many samples.

Beck appeared on Saturday Night Live in promotion of Mutations, performing "Tropicalia" and "Nobody's Fault but My Own". 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?

Beck, IMO, is a musical and lyrical genius and not only are his songs parts of a greater whole on each album, each album is a part of the greater overall collection.

But while Beck is a scholar of music, he’s never been content with merely reproducing his record collection. Spectre sonore respecté et pas ou peu de craquements audibles, plus qu'à espérer un repressage de ce niveau pour "Midnite Vultures". The lyrics are also much more somber and serious than those on Odelay, apparent in the songs "Nobody's Fault but My Own" and "Dead Melodies". Tout est dans le titre, on savait que l'album était bon au format CD, on sait maintenant que ce pressage vinyle (Geffen / Bong Load Records 2017) est superbe. Why should we think that writing songs about being horny and wanting to dance are any less valid than songs about watching your relationship fall apart?

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.He lodged alt-rock radio hits in an era where that still mattered, performed at the Grammys, losing Album Of The Year to Celine Dion. It is possible that Beck knows when he sings in a strained falsetto about wanting to nail your sister, he knows he’ll get a laugh, and that he knows when he sings in a resigned lower register about feeling “unmoved, untouched, unglued” in “Cold Brains,” he knows he’ll get a sigh of recognition from anyone that has ever felt sad and unmoored (which is to say, anyone), and he’s a skillful enough performer that he knows how to hit both marks. The low end seems to be the added component, lending significant weight to an already excellent recording. 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.