In 1996, Beck released what many thought was his second studio album (it was actually his fifth album overall), and the general public weren’t too sure what they were going to get. On Beck’s ‘debut’ album, Mellow Gold, they had been introduced to a new figure in the alt-rock genre, but based on the success of the album’s lead single, ‘Loser‘, folks weren’t sure whether or not they were about to get a dud album from a one-hit wonder, or something that would set Beck apart as one of the all-time greats.
Considering I’m talking about this album only a couple of weeks after I managed to see Beck perform live in support of his thirteenth studio album, you can guess which one it was. Odelay became one of the most acclaimed albums of the ’90s, winning the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album and Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for ‘Where It’s At‘. Needless to say, the album was a triumph.
On paper, it shouldn’t have worked. Beck went out and sampled so many differing sources, including spoken-word sexual education records, to psychedelic jams that many would never have heard. Yet somehow, this album came together to form a cohesive mess that went on to become one of the defining moments of Beck’s career.
Opening track ‘Devils Haircut’ is one of the finest examples of Beck’s approach to music. Taking a number of samples to form the basis of the track (including a replayed riff of Them’s ‘I Can Only Give You Everything‘), Beck threw down his trademark metaphorical and nonsensical lyrics over the top, including my personal favourite, “Heads are hanging from the garbage man trees, mouthwash, jukebox, gasoline.”
The end result was a surprisingly simplistic gem that has been deservedly lauded over the years as one of the most memorable alt-rock cuts of the decade. If every track from the decade was as memorable as ‘Devils Haircut’, the ’90s would have been even more of a musical revolution than it already was.
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