Day 6, Beck - Mutations

Today I listened to Mutations by Beck. This may come as a surprise, but I have never heard this album before, and I only really know a few tracks off Odelay and The Information. I guess I only listen to him at parties when the goal is to block out the music so you can hear what your buddy is saying.

But I am glad I finally sat down to a whole album of his. I actually cheated a little and listened to it twice through last night, and then three more times today. The first spin went by pretty quickly. Perhaps because I was expecting a party-time album like other things I’ve heard of his. After realizing that this was not his college bar juke-box collection, I searched a little deeper. And my efforts (and it didn’t take much) were fruitful.

Beck has an uncanny ability to hold onto musical traditions but still come up with something completely fresh. Take this track “Tropicalia.” It’s a clear bosa nova groove, but instead of being afraid of being too obvious, he runs with it. He keeps all of the bosa nova essentials: funky trumpets, some triangle and cow bells, Spanish guitars, and monkey-type thing in the background. But don’t think for one second that you’re listening to “Girl from Ipanema.” It is so clearly Beck, and he is simply exploring a new costume. And yeah, his sporadic synthesizer explosions and wild sound fx helps separate his sound from say, Bueno Vista Social Club, for sure. “Canceled Check” is an other perfect example of this. Beck takes a traditional blues/folk song, keeps the staples, and runs with it until it is his own creation.

It made me think back to Deer Tick’s War Elephants and how it had fine folk/blues tunes that would be suddenly attacked by crazy effects and blatant anguish, and how it was so jarring. Here, Beck meshes his quirky effects into the mix so that they are a part of the song, not duct-taped to it. And so it seems more organic, which allows him to be even more playful. This makes every nuance really fun. And there is a wit here lyrically, too. He can make you smile about his sadness, like in “Bottle of Blues:” “Holding hands with an impotent dream in a brothel of fake energy…like a tired soldier with nothing to shoot.”

Most of the tracks are deep blues tracks, rooted in sorrow. Lyrics from "O Maria:" “I’ve been looking for a good time, but the pleasures are seldom and few…I’ve been looking for a new friend and I don’t care if he is decrepit and grey…The night is useless and so are we.” But has Beck created a tear jerker? No. But then again, does Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison” make you cry? No, but that sense of that longing and sadness is still at the forefront of the song.

Thanks Gab for the suggestions and actually getting me to listen to someone I should definitely know by now. It really was a pleasure. Well rooted in tradition, but experimental. Fun, but sentimental…