My memory isn't crystal clear on this, but I'm pretty sure I bought this on the strength of hearing just one track once on John Peel's radio show. I couldn't tell you what track it was, so maybe I'm mixing this up with something else — but I can't imagine how else I would have found this. Maybe it was via Mixing It, one of the few other ways of discovering interesting music off the mainstream in the early '90s.
Straight away I loved the way Beck seems to recognise the similarity between Bob Dylan's 1965/66 how-many-words-can-I-pack-in-one-line writing (I'm thinking It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) or Subterranean Homesick Blues) and rap music. Listening to it again now, the confidence and daring of the instrumentation and the treated vocals grabbed me, and reminded me of Tom Waits as well.
Everything about this album had a strange impenetrability to it. Even though you could tell what Beck might have been listening to, his melding of these sources was complete and came at you fully-formed like a message from an alien culture. The picture of him in motorcycle (or welding?) goggles, and the other one where he looks incredibly young with his acoustic guitar, all added to this.
By the time of his next album, he had britpop people making guest appearances and it all seemed a lot more tame and familiar. I didn't listen to him properly again until Sea Change eight years later.
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