[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It from WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. We continue our music history-themed hour with a trip to the year 1998 for another installment of our Silver Liner Notes series celebrating albums released 25 years ago. Today we're going to dive into the genre-bending music of Beck, but to do so, first, we have to crank the clock back a few years before that for a little context.

[MUSIC - Beck: Loser]

Soy un perdedor

I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

(Double-barrel buckshot)

Soy un perdedor

I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare

Ban all the music with a phony gas chamber

'Cause one's got a weasel and the other's got a flag

One's on the pole, shove the other in a bag

Alison Stewart: That single Loser came out in 1994 and was not like much else out there. People wondered if Beck was a one-hit wonder, especially after his debut record Mellow Gold didn't quite glitter, but he followed up in 96 with Odelay, which featured some heavy sampling, a blend of blues, jazz, and hip-hop, produced by the Dust Brothers fresh off of working with the Beastie Boys on their second album. You can hear Beck and the Dust Brothers at work on Where It's At.

[MUSIC - Beck: Where It's At]

There's a destination a little up the road

From the habitations and the towns we know

A place we saw, the lights turn low

The jigsaw jazz and the get-fresh flow

Pulling out jives and jamboree handouts

Two turntables and a microphone

Bottles and cans, just clap your hands

Just clap your hands

Where it's at

I got two turntables and a microphone

Where it's at

Alison Stewart: Then two years later, Beck's third major release Mutations showed off Beck's musicianship and his diverse musical tastes. We'll play some tracks hand-selected by our guest, Nathan Brackett, who wrote the Mutations review for Rolling Stone when it came out in 1998. He was their executive editor, and now is an exec at Amazon Music. Nathan, thank you for being with us.

Nathan Brackett: Hey, Alison. Thanks for having me on.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we're talking about the 25th anniversary of Mutations, the 1998 album from Beck. If you have a place in your heart for that album, or if you're a Beck super fan across his career, give us a call and tell us why. 212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can call in and join us on air. You can text us at that number as well, or you can reach out on our socials @allofitwnyc. We are talking about Beck and Mutations for Silver Liner Notes. All right. Nathan, for folks who are unfamiliar with Beck's work, can you give us a sense of his musicianship and his instincts as a songwriter right around this time that he put out Mutations?

Nathan Brackett: Sure, Alison. I'm so glad you gave some of the context leading up to this record before because I think to understand Mutations, you really have to know where he was coming from. He was coming off of Odelay, which was really his biggest album of his career. He was really everywhere, he was touring. He had been touring for two years straight.

Also in that time, all of a sudden it felt like every rock band all of a sudden had a DJ. This is the era of Sugar Ray and Smash Mouth. There's a certain weariness to this record where he really showed that he was not going to give us Odelay part two or Mellow Gold part three, or like another Loser. He said he wanted to do something different and he really charted a course for the rest of his career because he showed that he was going to do a left turn when he needed to.

I love this record. It's been such a joy listening to it a lot recently getting ready for this. One thing that really shines is just his lyric writing. I think that's what so many Beck fans love about him is that his lyrics hold up so well. That's what I think is such a huge part of his career and his appeal.

Alison Stewart: You told us that his lyrics were something that you admired. What themes or ideas did he explore on this album?

Nathan Brackett: The themes, it's so funny. If you listen to the lyrics for this record without listening to the music, you'd think, "Oh, my gosh, what is up with Beck? Is he in this depressive state?" Because there's so many themes of decay and alienation. Even from the first two records of Beck. You knew if you listened to him that he loves a garbage pale or a rusty nail. There's just so much of that in this record, but it never feels super heavy amazingly. I think that it tells you something about where Beck was coming from, a little history on him.

His grandfather was this experimental artist, Al Hansen. As a child, he would take Beck and his brother out into the streets of Los Angeles like Fairfax and they would actually collect trash for Al's art, literally pick up bags of cigarette wrappers and the rusty stuff. For him, I think he has all these positive associations with trash in a way. It was his comfort zone. I think he saw it as an antidote to what he saw as this sort of two pristine version of Southern California and whatever you want to call mainstream culture. There's just a lot of so many great lyrics here. We could go into individual songs, but it's such a treat listening to this record again, and hilarious too.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Rob from Jersey City calling in. Hi, Rob. Thanks for calling All Of It. You're on the air.

Rob: Hey, Alison. How are you doing?

Alison Stewart: Doing great.

Rob: Good to be with you, guys. I'm a huge Beck fan, have been for years and not calling in specifically about Mutations, but just a shout-out to the strength of Morning Phase and Sea Change. I know you guys are celebrating the 25th anniversary, but for me, those albums and they're companion albums, they're just amazingly beautiful. I think it was around I guess 2014 when Morning Phase came out. He won a Grammy for it.

The interesting thing about it was, I think he was up against artists like Beyoncé. Someone posted something on social media, all the producers, there was like 30 people that helped produce Beyoncé's album at the time. I can't remember which one it was. Then they put Beck up who had won it. It was just him. He was the writer, performer. That's what's so amazing about this guy. He writes all his own stuff. He produces a lot of his own stuff. He's the real deal just in one package. I couldn't be a bigger fan. It's great.

Alison Stewart: Rob, thanks for calling in. Let's talk to Penny from Westchester. Hi, Penny. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Penny: Alison, love you, love your show. Missed you to pieces when you were gone. Thanks for taking my call. I come from Radiohead, that's my go-to, love them but Beck loves his later work. His transformation over the years has been great. My all-time favorite song, which is, I was telling your screener my ringtone, for decades now has been E-Pro. It's been so difficult as I've been getting new phones to always change it and try and keep it, but that's been my ringtone. He is my hero. It freaks everyone out when they hear it. No one knows it because people are old and unhip. Thank you so much for featuring Beck. He so deserves this. He's just so wonderful.

Alison Stewart: Penny, thank you for calling in for the kind words. This edition of Silver Liner Notes is dedicated to Beck and his album Mutations turn 25 this year. If you want to join in and join us on the air, have a conversation about Beck, about his music, what he means to you, about this album specifically, that'd be great. 212-433-9692, 212-433 WNYC. You can call in and join us on air or you can text to us at that number. Social media is available as well @allofitwnyc. My guest is Nathan Brackett. He is former Rolling Stone editor. He wrote the review of Mutations in 1998, currently at Amazon Music executive. You picked out some tracks for us to listen to from the album. Let's start things off by hearing, oh, I love this one, Tropicalia.

[MUSIC - Beck: Tropicalia]

Oh, and now you've had your fun

Under an air-conditioned sun

It's burned into your eyes

Leaves you plain and left behind

I see them eyes and fall

Into the jaws of a pestilent love

You wouldn't know what to say to yourself

Love is a poverty you couldn't sell

Misery waiting in vague hotels

To be evicted

Alison Stewart: Nathan, I've always appreciated a Beck groove even on his slow bowels. I was listening to the whole album last night just to remind myself. That comes like smack in the middle of the record after a couple of Mellow lovely pieces. What do you make of the sequencing?

Nathan Brackett: The sequencing is so funny on this record because not every song is super somber but a lot of people at the time including, I think me in my review you noticed the difference from Odelay. I think part of that is because of the sequencing because they start with Cold Brains which I think we might get to later which is such a great song but then he goes into Nobody's Fault But My Own which is really probably the most wistful and somber song on the record.

You're totally right, Alison, Tropicalia really jumps out because it is so upbeat, and I think that makes it more special. I really see Tropicalia, he's talked about how it's like a tribute to some of the great Brazilian Tropicalia groups from the late ‘60s. Tropicalia just a quick history was like a psychedelic rock movement in Brazil in the late ‘60s which had some political overtones, but they had to be really careful because there was a dictatorship in Brazil at the time, so they snuck in political messages into the music.

The bands like Os Mutantes who a lot of people have said might let their name to Mutations as a tip of the cap to them made this incredible psychedelic rock and really approached rock from a totally different angle as bands in the US and the UK at the time. I think that discovered them in the late ‘90s ahead of this record and I think he was really inspired, he said that it really almost changed his life listening to that music.

Alison Stewart: Let's take some more--

Nathan Brackett: I'm sorry, go ahead.

Alison Stewart: I just said let's take some more calls. Kevin from Brooklyn is calling. Hi, Kevin.

Kevin: Hi, how are you doing?

Alison Stewart: Doing great, you're on the air.

Kevin: Thanks. Mutations is I would say my favorite album by Beck. It ranks really high. Really, I don't understand why it's underrated in a way. I don't know, that's maybe said for lots of different albums but to me, I think it's overshadowed by Odelay and Sea Change and the rest and I think it's just amazing. I think some of the deeper tracks like Lazy Flies, We Live Again, Bottle of Blues, there's that final track that just really rocks out. I think it's just amazing.

I actually met Beck at a show when he played at [unintelligible 00:12:38] years ago, and I told him that that he made a great album. He was really, really kind and thankful so I just want to share that.

Alison Stewart: Kevin, thank you so much. What do you make of that Nathan that idea that Mutations is one of these albums of his that gets overlooked but maybe shouldn't?

Nathan Brackett: I think even when they put it out, I think they knew it was a record for maybe the more serious Beck fans even though I really do think it's a pretty accessible record, but I think it does-- There's definitely contingent like the caller who rank it as one of their favorite Beck records and it's a pretty big one, but it does sometimes get overlooked in favor of Odelay and Sea Change.

In a lot of ways, Mutations set the template for Beck’s career in that he started doing this thing where he would make a more beat-driven record like Midnight Vultures which came right after this, and then follow it up with a more acoustic record like Sea Change. He did the same thing with Morning Phase later in his career. It really set the mold for where he was going, and I think it really pulled in some of his more serious fans even closer and fans like your caller who are still with him to this day.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear the track you mentioned earlier, Cold Brains. Why did you want us to listen to Cold Brains?

Nathan Brackett: I just love Cold Brains and it's just so emblematic of Mutations in that it's catchy, and really, it's so listable but then you get a little deeper too and you listen to some of the lyrics which touch on some pretty dark themes. It's actually about writer's block. It leads off by saying cold brains unmoved, untouched, unglued. He's really singing about himself, but he's also making fun of himself. Yes, I love this song. It's actually like a mix of all the things that makes Beck great.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a listen to Cool Brains.

[MUSIC - Beck: Cool Brains]

Cold brains, unmoved, untouched

Unglued, alone at last

No thoughts, no mind

To rot behind

A trail of disasters

A final curse

Abandoned hearse

Alison Stewart: That is Beck Cold Brains. I'm going to tell you a confession, Nathan. Last night was the holiday party and everywhere it says your name is Nathan Beckett and nobody caught it it's Nathan Brackett because it was the holiday party last night.

[laughter]

Nathan Brackett: I think we all have Beck on the brain because we're talking about Mutations so it's all good. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: You have a good spot. My guess is Nathan Brackett for Rolling Stone, the writer, and current Amazon Music executive, we are talking about Beck’s Mutations. I'm going to put in there comment, and good spot. Beck said about that last track, "I think of it as mostly playful but then I think Leonard Cohen is a humorous songwriter. In Cold Brains when I say, 'The fields of green are obscene and I lay upon the gravel,' there's just a demented auto-erotica that I think is hilarious. It's not meant to be necessary to bring anybody down or to bum anybody out." Do you think of Beck as a funny writer, as a humorous writer?

Nathan Brackett: Oh, yes, always. I'll say this, even sometimes, I don't want to say to his detriment, but it sometimes it has meant that some people don't take him as seriously and I think he even realized that. He got really sick, I remember him talking once about how he got sick of music writers calling him a man-child in every feature or a joke rapper. I think he's starting to address that with Mutations in a way and also setting the mold for the adult phase of his career.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Sean from Manhattan. Hi, Sean, thanks for calling All Of It.

Sean: Hi, Alison, thanks for doing the show. I was so stoked to hear you guys are going to feature this record so thank you. No, this record, echoing many of what the other callers have said, I think it was just such a big stake in the ground of where Beck was going to go musically that I think the influence of this record is shows that I got turned on to Tropicalia for the next decade after hearing Tropicalia in his song, and then just the influences of artists that like I didn't know this was a pathway into finding John Martin and other artists.

I think the thing that a lot of people don't realize until they’ve seen Beck is he can stand with a guitar or just a very simple instrument, harmonica, and blow you away and then he can be with us full band. It just shows that he's not just a production, his balance musically are really hard to put into words.

Alison Stewart: Sean, you did a great job of putting into words. Let's talk to Joey from Brooklyn. Hi, Joey. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Joey: Hi, how's it going?

Alison Stewart: Going forward.

Joey: I just wanted to mention the artwork that's on the inside sleeve of the CD is this guy Tim Hawkinson who's also really interesting 25 years later. Sorry, I was just going up a flight of stairs. I just think that Tim Hawkinson uses the body in a certain way and was also using kind of a way to measure himself and the work is also very funny and a little bit sad. That one piece of like the fingerprint it's like a cut tip of a finger filled with red pens, and markers that they’re like the red blood but they're also like a correction pen. It's like this idea of making mistakes, making corrections and figuring out your career in a deeper artistic way. Then he had this big show at the Whitney, a solo show at the Whitney right around the time of that album.

Alison Stewart: That's great information. Joey, thank you so much. Nathan, when I’m thinking about it, when you think about Beck as a performer and about his presentation, what comes to mind?

Nathan Brackett: He always has a great band, he works really hard, and he is behind this jokey facade that we were talking about earlier. He always has just a terrific live band and this particular band on Mutations was so, so together for this record. They recorded it I think, in two weeks, which is really fast. Coal Brains was the first song that they did. They just walked in the studio and did it with Nigel Godrich who's a Radiohead producer on OK Computer. The fact is to the fact that they could even do a song like Tropicalia which is Brazilian music, which is not easy to play, just tells you something. I think Beck said something at the time, saying like, he'd been a fan of Brazilian music for years, but was scared of actually trying it out until he had a band that could really do it, and he did with this record.

Alison Stewart: Leah calling from Vermont real quick, you've got about 30 seconds.

Leah: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to echo that I really think that Mutations was really overlooked. Then when Sea Change and Morning Phase came out, in retrospect, it really was almost a prequel to those two albums. You can hear, nobody spoke, but my own on Mutations that could have been right on Sea Change. I think it also, just to note that someone said that his lyrics are really funny, and he's a funny lyricist and he is but he also writes incredibly deep, sad, and very moving, non-funny lyrics as well.

Alison Stewart: Absolutely, Leah. Thank you so much for calling in. We're going out on canceled check. Nathan Brackett, thank you so much for being with us. Nathan Brackett, he's a former Rolling Stone writer and current Amazon Music executive, and a good spot. Nathan, thanks for being with us.

Nathan Brackett: Thanks for having me.

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