So why is Beck’s Mutations on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
On the spectrum of Beck albums, we might place funk/hip-hop/electronica mashup extravaganzas such as Odelay (#24 of best 1,000 albums ever) and Midnite Vultures(#278) on one side, and then much quieter, introspective, and often melancholy song collections – Sea Change (#259)and Morning Phase (#788) in particular – on the other end.
Mutations (and, to some extent, the brilliant One Foot in the Grave, #18) fall roughly in the middle of that spectrum: they are offbeat, lo-fi outings that dabble in a wide range of genres ranging from folk to country to blues to psychedelia to fuzzed-out electronica.
And for all of that, it’s remarkable how good Mutations sounds when you press “Play” on your CD player (as I did many times back in the late ‘90s and early 2000s with this one), kicking off with “Cold Brains,” and letting it run all the way through to the hilariously titled “Diamond Bollocks.”
If there’s one true jewel (diamond?) on Mutations, it’s the bossa nova masterpiece that is “Tropicalia.” It’s one of those songs that I’ve listened to countless times and can never get enough of it.
I’ve long paired “Tropicalia” with a Beck song called “Deadweight,” which was released as part of the soundtrack for A Life Less Ordinary* roughly a year before Mutations came out.
* A Life Less Ordinary is a rather good (and strange) movie, starring Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz, that got quite a lot of action via DVD at our place back in the day.
I dug up this rather amazing bit relating to these songs from Wikipedia:
Beck has mentioned that this song was a part of his “Brazilian trilogy”, alongside “Tropicalia” and “Missing“. Unlike “Tropicalia”, which is a bossa nova song, “Deadweight” uses its Brazilian influence more as part of a larger funky brew. As Beck said in USA Today, “I’m trying to get to a place where this merging of styles is so fluent and natural that you don’t notice the different snippets, a musical consciousness where there’s no preconceived ideas”.
Each song on Mutations flows into the next rather perfectly, even though there are so many eclectic choices being made throughout. Example: the psychedelic pop of “Lazy Flies” segues into the folksy alt-country blues of “Canceled Check.”
“Bottle of Blues,” which appears later in the album, ties nicely to “Canceled Check.”
“Sing It Again” is a slow, sweet, and sad acoustic number that would have fit in perfectly well on One Foot in the Grave.
Some stats & info about Beck – Mutations
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Indie Rock, Lo-Fi, Alternative Pop
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Mutations released? 1998
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #217 out of 1,000
Beck’s Mutations on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Beck’s Mutations that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
You wouldn’t know what to say to yourself – love is a poverty you couldn’t sell. Misery waits in vague hotels, to be evicted.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.