For the second half of September, I’m putting my Mental Jukebox into a time machine, featuring the best songs on the best albums from the very best years of music. #70sThrough90sBestAlbum
Odelay, like many Beck albums, is a euphoric musical playground. Swing on the samples. Slide down the classic guitar riffs. Climb onto the distortion-infused grooves . Ride on the hip-hop-influenced rhythms. Each track tickles a different fancy. “Devils Haircut” lays down a series of irresistible drum breaks. “Ramshackle” feels like a drunken, late night ode inside a seedy saloon. “Jack-Ass” serves as a foreshadowing to his somber Sea Change album. And then there’s “The New Pollution”.
The track has a sample-driven mentality, but the song seems to traverse these different sounds defiantly and bravely. 50’s TV music. Jazz-drenched samples. 60’s rock. Electronic blips. Somehow it all seems to go together so naturally. On “The New Pollution”, I love how Beck reinvents the tempo of his key sample: a slow sax solo from Joe Thomas’ “Venus” is given a swift kick in the ass with a faster, more brash version of itself, which is then mirrored by Beck’s own guitar.
“She's got a hand on a wheel of pain. She can talk to the mangling strangers. She can sleep in a fiery bog. Throwing troubles to the dying embers.”