Mutations

On his 1996 breakthrough album Odelay, Beck Hansen surprised a sleepy music community by blending funk, rock, rap, alternative, and electronica in ways that were both startlingly innovative and irresistibly catchy. Mutations is equally attention-grabbing but not in the gangbusters-pimp-rock-meets-indie-geek style you might expect. Reflective and plaintive, the album reveals Beck's more sentimental side with an eclectic collection of acoustic-based songs that will sound familiar to anyone who cherishes his indie-rock effort One Foot in the Grave. And don't think just because Beck's gone soft, he's gotten boring. From one song to the next, the chameleonic guru strums pensively, shimmies to a bossa nova rhythm, swirls on a psychedelic cloud, plucks Baroque strains from a harpsichord, and weeps countrified tears into a rusty tin bucket. On Mutations, Beck proves that an undistorted guitar and a bit of creativity can easily sound as exciting as two turntables and a microphone. --Jon Wiederhorn

It's unfortunate how much attention has been paid to how this album was recorded--quickly, without the same level of studio fuss that marked Beck's breakthrough album, Odelay. That's a shame because our favorite chameleon has pulled the neatest trick of all: he's dropped the lyrical schtick that sometimes marred his sonic wizardy, leaving listeners to wonder if he even believed in the music he was playing. That's not an issue here. At times, he sounds like Ray Davies updated for the '90s, stripping himself bare with lovely, simple songs that linger long after they've supposedly ended. Beck may have made his initial mark with "Loser," a clever but insincere admission of inferiority; he's more likely to be remembered for the similar but more heartfelt confession of "Nobody's Fault But My Own." --Keith Moerer

Mutations is a deliberately low-key procession of folkish rambles that aren't interested in any grand statements. [It] is a collection of tumblin'-tumbleweeds, mellow-Acapulco-gold melodies on which Beck's drowsy voice and strummed guitar are framed by the lazy whine of a pedal steel, the wheeze of a harmonica, the occasional trumpet, and the bleeps and burps of old-school synthesizers.

Mutations is a delightful step backward in Beck's career, harkening to his pre-Odelay days and his first lo-fi indie album, 1993's Golden Feelings.

Though his lyrics remain too surreal and self-conscious to suit the homespun music, Beck shines in mellow mode....

There's a warmth to [Beck's] voice that draws you in, grounding even such surreal numbers as the Zen ballad "We Live Again." In a much more subtle way, these songs ultimately insinuate themselves as insistently as "Where It's At" or "Devils Haircut."

Japanese edition of Beck's folky 1998 album with three bonustracks, 'Electric Music And The Summer People', 'DiamondBollocks' & 'Runners Dial Zero'. 14 tracks total, alsoincluding the single 'Tropicalia'. A Bongload/ GeffenRecords release.Geffen.

Japanese Version featuring Two Bonus Tracks: "Electric Music and the Summer People" (Unreleased Version) and "Runners Dial Zero".