Beck - Odelay

Odelay is the second official studio album (fifth overall) by American alternative rock artist Beck, released in June 1996 via DGC Records.

Beck's follow up to Mellow Gold was the one which saw the genre-hopping maverick finally cementing his reputation with actual sales.

Born to a family of situationist artists and musicians, the young Beck had already made minor label forays into left field folk (One Foot In The Grave) and out-there noise but Mellow Gold showed he had considerable writing chops as well.

Odelay, originally mooted to be a more downbeat collection of sparse ballads became the pepped up hip hop smorgasbord we all know and love when the Dust Brothers were invited on board to pepper things up.

A savvy use of old samples, (everything from Van Morrison to Motown), combined with wicked grooves meant that songs like "New Pollution", "Where It's At" and "Devil's Haircut" effortlessly scaled the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

Odelay, with its fantastic cover of a Hungarian Komondor dog, contained far more riches: From the shout-it-out mayhem of "Novocaine" through the exquisite ramshackle misery of "Derelict" to the country twang of "Jack-Ass".

Beck was announcing that not only was he here, but he could turn his funky little hand to just about anything.  Each track twists conventions, either in their construction or presentation, giving this a vibrant, electric pulse, surprising in its form and attack. Like a mosaic, all the details add up to a picture greater than its parts, so while some of Beck's best songs are here, Odelay is best appreciated as a recorded whole, with each layered sample enhancing the allusion that came before.

This LP record is a reissue (January 2017) on 180 gram heavyweight vinyl featuring remastered audio with printed insert and digital download code, pressed in Europe.