The Daily Spin, August 12
Beck | Odelay
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
Album: Odelay (1996)
Artist: Beck
Link:
Beck has long served as a sort of countercultural ambassador - though little about his fight to enter the mainstream music scene screams ‘slacker’, the fact that the song to break him through was called ‘Loser’ sure made him an emblem for the slacker scene.
Though much of that early fire made it seem as though Beck was destined to be a one-hit wonder, including the puzzling marketing and showmanship he sometimes displayed, it was 1996’s Odelay that became a classic in its own right, displaying a playful versatility that set his career up beautifully - and it’s that same absurdity that’s carried him to greatness even today.
My favorite thing about Odelay is the sample work - not entirely dissimilar to the Avalanches, a lot of these tracks are amalgamations of so many other influences, and yet it’s all cohesive in a way that displays very serious mastery of what music can be. Odelay is joyful and serious all at once, a dichotomy that could easily go wrong but instead feel right with everything Beck does, and under the silly lyrics and funky instrumentation there’s a lot of heart that makes this an appealing listen time and time again.
Rating: 8.4/10
Best Tracks: Novacane; Readymade; Ramshackle
Worst Tracks: Computer Rock