So why is Beck’s Odelay on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Odelay was released in June, 1996 mere weeks after I graduated from Binghamton University in New York.
Whereas Beck was largely known to me and my friend group as the “Loser guy” up until that point, Odelay was the record that firmly established him in my eyes as a musical chameleon prankster and genre-hopping genius.
It’s fascinating that the Dust Brothers, in their relatively brief music producing career, brought out the very best in the Beastie Boys with Paul’s Boutique and in Beck with Odelay. The Wikipedia entry for Odelay refers to the Dust Brothers’ “hip-hop focused but layered” production style, which is as good a way to describe it as any.
In Beck’s wildly roving imagination that allowed him to establish that baseline while also spanning country, folk grunge, uptempo lounge, and weirdo noise rock – sometimes all on the same song. That the collaboration created an entire album that holds together not just well but fantastically well launches Odelay into the upper stratosphere of the best 1,000 albums ever.
“Devils Haircut,” the album opener and a top 10 Beck track, is a New York City song for me. It reminds me of my post-college days of living in Queens and working in Manhattan. It’s a big, booming, catchy track, bombastic drums and minimal yet omnipresent guitar riff set against Beck’s collage of phrases, seemingly random at first glance but strikingly resonant upon repeat listens.
Something’s wrong ’cause my mind is fading
And everywhere I look, there’s a dead end waiting
Temperature’s dropping at the rotten oasis
Stealing kisses from the leprous faces
The collage, like all great art, can be sorted and re-sorted in multiple ways, to be made our own.
Temperature’s dropping at the rotten oasis became an NYC anthem of sorts for me, like it’s about to go down. It’s ALL going to go down in New York City, everything’s eventual to steal the term from my man Stephen King.
There’s something about being young and single in New York City. At least there certainly was for me in those far gone late ‘90s days, pre-9/11 under the landmark of those Twin Towers in downtown Manhattan.
They represented security and safety for me, if you can believe. You always knew where “south” was when you popped out of a building or the subway.
And it was that seemingly endless invincibility of being young, too, constrained by very little responsibility except to hit the scene, to get down all the way.
So then therefore devils haircut in my mind got turned around too – that meant I could be badass in that city of endless reinvention, ceaseless energy, manic hustle, and 24/7 delights ranging from 4 a.m. bialys at Lower East Side bakeries to all day shenanigans at Hogs & Heifers, a Meat Packing District dive bar – years before the neighborhood went high end chic – where lady customers were invited to dance on the bar, take off their bras, and toss them against the wall.
“Where It’s At” was the first single off of Odelay, and it’s the one that swiftly graduated from being “the Loser guy” for my generation* and into simply Beck.
* By the way: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I revere Mellow Gold, the album from whence “Loser” sprung, and in fact it’s #45 of the best 1,000 albums ever.
“Where It’s At” came out the month I graduated from Binghamton University, and I can still clearly recall my housemates randomly blurting out two turntables and a microphone like the catchphrase sensation it was.
Oh, and the bonus catchphrase of course was that was a good drum break.
It’s also representative of the very rare situation for me where a music video kind of unlocked what a musician or band were really all about. I wasn’t super familiar with Beck at the time – beyond the whole “Loser” thing, of course – and so when the “Where It’s At” music video suddenly dominated MTV, I had the opportunity to closely study it… instead of, let’s face it, for my finals.
The key sequence begins around the one minute mark, where we see Beck on a clearly low budget outdoor stage in front of what might be a strip mall. He’s dressed up as perhaps a hipster used car salesman, in a short-sleeve dress shirt, striped tie, and dark brown slacks, with several avant-garde-looking dudes backing him up.
The most important thing to me of all is that there are cheapo banners and some balloons strewn about, and behind him are handwritten signs that read VALUE DAY$.
There’s something about VALUE DAY$ that somehow sums up Beck’s entire DIY artist/weirdo aesthetic, and I often think about it when listening to the vast array of albums that he’s produced over the years.
And of course, that’s just one brief sequence. From there a robot that looks like it would fit in on the set of Mystery Science Theater 3000, set against a disco dancehall backdrop, announces in robo-voice I got two turntables and a microphone.
In recent years, I’ve been most drawn to two of the country-flavored tracks on Odelay:“Lord Only Knows” and “Sissyneck.” Both walk that line that no one can do as well as Beck, where the songs are played “straight” in one respect, but also as homage and with a clear wink of good-natured irony that is in some sense steeped in the Gen X tradition.
Most importantly, both are great songs and also deeply weird at the same time, pulling in elements of hip-hop, electronica, alt country, with experimental flourishes as the cherry on top.
And the lyrics are both oddly profound and hilarious at the same time. Example, from “Sissyneck”:
I got a stolen wife and a rhinestone life
And some good old boys
I’m writing my will on a three dollar bill
In the evening time
“Minus” is a delightful deep cut, driving and slightly dirty alt rock that’s a cut above the best song that most bands from the era ever produced.
I’ll end on “Hotwax,” a wild play on soul, Delta blues, hip-hop, and art rock rolled up in a gloriously untidy ball.
Some stats & info about Beck – Odelay
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Dance Music, Alternative Rock, Rock Music, Pop Music, Country Rock, Hip Hop, Indie Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #424
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Beck’s Odelay released? 1996
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #24 out of 1,000
Beck’s Odelay on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Beck’s Odelay that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Pulling out jives and jamboree handouts – two turntables and a microphone.
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.