Beck

Mutations (DGC)
by Nik Rainey

Strange place, rock ‘n’ roll: nowhere else can a resouding buzz become a Bronx cheer in the dead space between two albums – hell, two singles – let’s face facts, by the time most of our hot new talent reaches the second chorus of their breakout hit, their careers can be found slabbed out and spinning limply on the disc it rode in on. (And you thought that was dust you were rubbing off on your shirt sleeve.) It’s not so much that nobody’s sacred (which is as it should be) but that everybody gets their fifteen minutes divvied up into 5 minutes of fervent praise, 7 minutes of sneering backlash, and 3 minutes on the next VH1 Where Are They Now? that they can mistake for a comeback.

I mention this here because there’s a mini-movement afoot (chiefly located in the lyrics of some song by some “hot” “new” “talent,” neither of whose names I can recall just now, and I’m not about to look through that issue of Rolling Stone [you know, the one with the nearly-naked woman on the cover] again to find out) to tar Beck with the same brush that spatters gooey indignance all over those self-styled media sluts who happily bathe in the sticky muck like it’s limelight, namely that he’s a “phony” or some such. Quite a bizarre statement (though, granted, it may only be because “Beck Hansen” rhymes so readily with “Marilyn Manson”), partly because it’s coming from a guy who’s been trying to pimp himself to the majors for years, but mostly because Beck stands apart from the average telegenic brooder in that he’s traveled the indie-cum-conglom path without a single real misstep. Consider how easily he could’ve rode his fluke hit single of five years past right into the Slackers’ Graveyard (a place everyone claims to dig but nobody can be bothered to pick up a shovel), but while his post-Mellow Gold output contained progressively fewer lyrics about toiling in fast-food joints and other such low-rent urban underbellyaching, he has kept himself blessedly free of the typical manifestations of the nouveau riche noble savage ego, neither polishing it up to a cocaine-slickened gleam nor thrashing about in an In Utero-esque attempt to push the crowds away. And he’s consistently demonstrated a startling ease at sidestepping every pigeonhole the media and the public has laid before him like so many Dick van Dyke Show ottomans. What else can you say about a guy who records an “uncommercial” album for the tiny label from whence he came, only to have Davey Geffen’s minions ask, nay beg, to release it themselves as-is and give it the full-on major media rollout treatment (promo postcards, shopping bags, interview discs, personalized cock rings… oops, looks like the label head’s private stash got thrown in the out box by mistake)? Dunno about you, but I’d say the lad’s blessed.

So here we are, 500 words into the review and I suppose it’s time to talk about Mutations itself: given the paradoxical air of humility and hype that surrounded its release, it’s appropriate that the album’s a genial, low-key affair that, unlike previous detours such as One Foot in the Grave, has the focus and drive of a big-league statement. Soaked in an ambience as warm as an old tube amp, Mutations finds our hero knocking off seamless collages of the more organic source material littered throughout his world – folk dropped like magazine subscription cards on L.A. streets, country tabulature jotted down on the backs of drugstore receipts, and traces of ’60s easy listening records and bits of auld psychefreakedelia discovered between the fibers of studio carpets – all arranged, heaped and stacked with a skill as easy as a shrug of his skinny shoulders. And of course, this being Beck, it’s overlaid with many sterling examples of his trademark nonsense-as-wit (see how easily he nails the shallowness of touristanista culture with a few well-chosen phrases in the bossa-super-nova “Tropicalia”), but also daring to be sincere when the mood hits him (“Nobody’s Fault But My Own”). The laid-back (and a touch melancholy) vibe suits him perfectly, resulting in an immensely likable, deeply satisfying breather that still holds a few surprises (the way the straightish-country “Canceled Check” devolves into a 40-second Zappaesque rented-percussion freakout or the requisite “hidden” track, where he cuts loose, goes Newport electric, and gives his standard Donovan-on-klonopin wordplay an acidic twist of Lennon). If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed this side of Beck as much as the houseboy homeboy side (think “Pay No Mind (Snoozer)” or “Steal My Body Home”), but for the rest of you, Mutations proves Beck to be truly (and you’ll excuse my misappropriation of the most tired of Beck-review clichés, but I can hardly resist) a manchild for all seasons.
(www.beck.com)