There are certainly sounds on this 1996 classic I hadn’t heard put together before, like turntables and harmonicas. Synthesizers abound and there is a groove a minute. It kicks off with that sacrilegious guitar riff about the devil and never looks back. I feel like I could end it there and it would be enough justification for you to listen to the album if you haven’t already. Beck invites us to his fifth studio album Odelay with, “Devil’s Haircut” and the journey is better than any need for a destination.

Odelay ranks at #306 on Rolling Stone’s top 500 Albums list and has sold 2.3 million copies in the United States, solidifying Beck’s presence on the music scene. I don’t think I’ve ever changed the radio station when the electric piano kicks in on “Where It’s At” and signals five minutes where I can just sway and relax. I haven’t seen Beck live, but I can always get behind the anthemic chorus lyric, “Where it’s at, I’ve got two turn tables and a microphone.” I am always down for that kind of an amateur show in my head.

“Lord Only Knows” gets back into a more traditional acoustic arrangement echoing a bit from 1994’s Mellow Gold that included the breakout hit, “Loser” and received substantial airplay, peaking the album at #13 on the Billboard charts. Beck’s folk background shines on this one with his lovably apathetic finish to the warm chorus, “So don’t, you hesitate to give yourself a call, letcha’ bottom dollars fall, throwin’ your two-bit cares down the drain.”

I’ve always thought that “The New Pollution” would sound perfect in an Austin Powers movie, the driving bluesy British groove hooks you almost immediately. It’s like you can see a cool-looking James Bond caricature moving in slow motion, suavely doing secret agent moves in a montage that will eventually end up coming together with impeccable timing. It also starts with the great line, “She’s got a cigarette on each arm” setting you up for the toxic landscape that she exists in.

In a word, this album has relentless flow. Beck makes some interesting choices and takes some chances, like opening, “Lord Only Knows” with an unintelligible scream, seemingly unrelated to the rest of the song. This derailed an early listen for a friend of mine when I first started loving this album, but they always come around. The listener is introduced to something new with each passing minute on this one, and almost all of it works to perfection. This is one to tune out the world to, it sounds just as great as it used to, and I might need to find a sixer of that, “jigsaw jazz” he mentioned and have another listen.