Mellow Gold

Beck得到业界瞩目是在1994初，他的那首hip-hop民谣单曲“Loser”在全美国的非主流摇滚电台中被广为播放，他在之后迅速由一个独立小厂牌的小人物变成了大厂牌争夺战的焦点。最后他签约于著名的DGC，原因是DGC允许他在其它独立公司发行自己非商业的作品。之后他推出了处女作《Mellow Gold》，专辑得到了如潮赞誉，很快就成了一张金唱片，“Loser”也打入了Top10 Ten。

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

From its kaleidoscopic array of junk-culture musical styles to its assured, surrealistic wordplay, Beck's debut album, Mellow Gold, is a stunner. Throughout the record, Beck plays as if there are no divisions between musical genres, freely blending rock, rap, folk, psychedelia, and country. Although his inspired sense of humor occasionally plays like he's a smirking, irony-addled hipster, his music is never kitschy, and his wordplay is constantly inspired. Since Mellow Gold was pieced together from home-recorded tapes, it lacks a coherent production, functioning more as a stylistic sampler: there are the stoner raps of "Loser" and "Beercan," the urban folk of "Pay No Mind (Snoozer)," the mock-industrial onslaught of "Mutherfuker," the garagey "Fuckin' With My Head (Mountain Dew Rock)," the trancy acoustic "Blackhole," and the gently sardonic folk-rock of "Nitemare Hippy Girl." It's a dizzying demonstration of musical skills, yet it's all tied together by a simple yet clever sense of songcraft and a truly original lyrical viewpoint, one that's basic yet as colorful as free verse. By blending boundaries so thoroughly and intoxicatingly, Mellow Gold established a new vein of alternative rock, one that was fueled by ideas instead of attitude.