One of the most inventive and eclectic figures to emerge from the '90s alternative revolution, Beck was the epitome of postmodern chic in an era obsessed with junk culture. Drawing upon a kaleidoscope of influences -- pop, folk, psychedelia, hip-hop, country, blues, R&B, funk, indie rock, noise rock, experimental rock, jazz, lounge, Brazilian music -- Beck created a body of work that was wildly unpredictable, vibrantly messy, and bursting with ideas. He was unquestionably a product of the media age -- a synthesist whose concoctions were pasted together from bits of the past and present, in ways that could only occur to an overexposed pop-culture junkie. His surreal, free-associative lyrics were laced with warped imagery and a sardonic sense of humor that, while typical of the times, only rarely threatened the impact of his adventurous music. Beck appropriated freely from whatever genres he felt like, juxtaposing sounds that would never have co-existed organically (and his habitual irony made clear that he wasn't aiming for authenticity in the first place). If his musical style was impossible to pigeonhole, his true identity lay in that rootless, sprawling diversity, that determination to acknowledge no boundaries or conventions; everything he did bore the stamp of his distinctively skewed viewpoint. Beck caught his big break when the bizarre Delta blues/white-boy-rap pastiche "Loser" spawned a national catch phrase in early 1994. His debut album, Mellow Gold, became a hit, and the official follow-up, the Dust Brothers-produced Odelay, was widely acclaimed as one of the decade's landmark records. Beck followed those touchstones with genre exercises in folk and funk that still managed to dazzle with their variety, solidifying one of the most creatively vital oeuvres in alternative rock -- or all of modern pop music, for that matter.
