The 20 Best Beck Songs

Related: The Best Songs of 2014 (So Far)

Related: The Best Albums of 2014 (So Far)

By Gus Turner, Constant Gardner, & Confusion

Beck has had an amazing career. Of that there can be no doubt.

After time spent in New York involved in the anti-folk movement at the end of the '80s, Beck moved back to his hometown of LA, where, in 1993, he would record his surprising breakthrough single "Loser." In typical Beck fashion, the song was recorded on a whim, spontaneously. "It was accidental, but it was something that I'd been working toward for a long time," he said in 1999. But who could imagine that the man behind that psych-folk-hop slacker anthem would go on to make over ten more albums, each of which is packed full of numerous ideas and powered along by a seemingly boundless creative energy.

Beck is a consumate musical chameleon, and, after 2008's Modern Guilt which mixed generally upbeat production with incredibly dark, paranoid lyrical content, he has changed course again with his twelfth studio album, Morning Phase. It comes out tomorrow (February 25), and although it is pegged as a follow-up of sorts to 2002's breakup album Sea Change, it sees Beck's voice inhabiting a world of lush string arrangements and warm textures, working his way stoically through heartbreak, accepting that it's not the end, but is just leading towards another new beginning.

In anticipation of Beck's first studio album for six years, we looked back through his stacked back catalog at the 20 Best Beck songs.

Album: Odelay

Year: 1996

The success of Mellow Gold, and specifically its standout, slacker singalong anthem "Loser," must have come as a surprise to Beck. With Odealy he proved he was no flash in the pan.

Instead, he was a masterful songwriter who combined a brilliant ear for melody with a love of surreal, tongue-twisting lyrics, and an unquenchable thirst for experimenting with and exploring different musical styles. Based around a sample of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (as performed by the band Them), "Jack-Ass" is one of the album's least obviously experimental songs, at its heart a softly spoken ballad with a memorable melody, and a delightful mid-album counterpoint to the ragged electro-funk of "Where It's At" or the raw stomp of "Novacane."

Album: The Information

Year: 2006

With an assist from Nigel Godrich, Beck returned to his roots on The Information, and the copy and paste attitude that defined much of his early aesthetic once again found a place in his repertoire with "Strange Apparition." But Godrich's meticulous attention to detail removes the lo-fi grit that typified his slacker grind and replaces it with a seamless blend between the song's countless parts. If not for Beck's unshakeable cool, this melodic change could've made the singer stiff but, as always, he just lets everything flow around him, coming to the background and foreground of the track as he chooses.

As such, "Strange Apparition" is a skilled variation on Beck's trademark sound, never coming off as a desperate imitation or misguided blast from the past.

Album: Guero

Year: 2005

"Girl" is one of Beck's most popular, well-known songs. The video, created by Motion Theory, and referencing Al Jaffee's Mad Magazine fold-ins, got considreable MTV play (back when that still mattered), and many people enjoyed the laid-back strumming and jaunty chorus of what sounds like "my sun-eyed girl."

But, as with much of Beck's work, "Girl" is a much more complex song than it first appears to be, with the verses full of images of death and murder. For example:

And I know I'm gonna steal her eye / She doesn't even know what's wrong / And I know I'm gonna make her die / Take her where her soul belongs.

Multi-faceted and rewarding to those who spend a bit more time with it, "Girl," is an apt summary of Beck's whole body of work.

Album: Midnite Vultures

Year: 1999

Announcing Midnite Vultures with some big brass, and Beck in his funkiest form, "Sexx Laws" trips in that same psychedelic territory as Of Montreal, keying off '60s psychedelica and '70s soul to create a total acid trip of a song. It's bold and beautiful, unafraid to get in your face right from the beginning. For anyone who felt like Sea Change was a downer, "Sexx Laws" was a wink and a nod from Beck to let his fans know that he wasn't too dragged down by depression to make something fun again. Some have argued that Midnite Vultures feels like a parody of the genres that it borrows from, but the energy that "Sexx Laws" brings to the table is too real to disregard.

Album: Mellow Gold
Year: 1994

"Beercan" is as messy as its name, detailing a rough and tumble night of a slacker who just ditched his job blowing leaves to get boozed up with winos and dancing women. It's the type of night that will end with crushed PBRs on the floor and a whole bunch of regrets, an impulse decision that only someone aimlessly wandering through their twenties would make. In a way, "Beercan" embodies the exact type of life that Beck makes us all wish we could live, consequences be damned. If you ever need some inspiration to quit your day job, "Beercan" is all you need.

Album: Modern Guilt

Year: 2008

Even as Beck grew older and more world-weary over the course of his albums, you never completely lose that sense that he derives a real joy from pieceing seemingly disparate elements together in patchworks of surprising sounds. On Modern Guilt, recorded with Danger Mouse, the generally upbeat production—filled with bouncy, bar room piano and jangly pop riffs—could not be more at odds with the subject matter. "Gamma Ray" takes this to its extremes, sounding at first listen like a sunny surf-rock song, but in reality wishing nuclear holocaust upon the world. There are few other living artists who could pull off a song like this without it seeming like a total joke, and Beck pulls it off with quirky aplomb.

Album: The Information
Year: 2006

Beck went back in the studio with production genius Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, U2, Paul McCartney) for the third time to record The Information. On an album packed with reflections on an uncertain, quickly changing world, one full of dense, tricky wordplay, "Think I'm In Love" is one of the most straightforward songs, both lyrically and in terms of production. This is Beck, so of course it's not as simple as just being happily in love, but there are no undertones of satire or irony here and the softly delivered chrous pinpoints a feeling that so many people can identify with.

Album: Sea Change
Year: 2002

"The Golden Age" is one of those tracks that's made for a road trip, and Beck knows it. "Put your hands on the wheel/Let the golden age begin/Let the window down/Feel the moonlight on your skin," he sings. Strangely, it's both a lullaby and a push to move forward. Beck is versatile in that way. Sea Change can either be the saddest record you've ever heard, or a remarkable catharsis, and "Golden Age" is a prime example of that flexibility. Whether you're on the road, looking for some motivation to keep driving through the night, or in a search of slow-burner to send you to sleep, Beck is here to help.

Album: One Foot In The Grave

Year: 1994

"Sleeping Bag" is a tried and true brand of country blues, talking about blown smoke and hanging moons, and once again displaying Beck's virtuoso abilities in countless genres. The track sets the scene for a quiet, intimate night, presumably about two broken-down lovers who can afford nothing more than some orange juice and a sleeping bag for their "picnic on the other side of town."

Album: Odelay
Year: 1996

Has anything made more sense than Beck working with the Dust Brothers on an album? Probably not. There's something about that meeting of the minds on Odelay that played perfectly in the mid-to-late '90s music scene. That sampledelica vibe, meeting in the middle of hip-hop and rock, played to the best of both Beck and the Dust Brothers. "Devil's Haircut" was a perfect example of that; you get Beck's twisted, almost nonsensical lyrics flowing over a throwback, breakbeat-heavy groove that suddenly dives into uncharted waters for no real reason. Not that there's any real reason to anything going on throughout the LP, but something clicked with "Devil's Haircut," where much of the album felt like beautiful experiments. This one's zany enough to work... and it does.

Album: Mutations
Year: 1998

Mutation was Beck's first time working with Nigel Godrich, and together they managed to create a follow-up to the successful Odelay that was sonically very different, but still clearly a Beck record. Beck's love of experimentation and genre-blending was still there, but Godrich smoothed out all the rough edges and in your face rawness. "Nobody's Fault But My Own" is a gorgeous, slow-paced folk-rock ballad tinged with pyschedelia and filled with mournfully poetic lyrics. Just another reminder that whatever genre Beck sets his sights on, he does well.

Album: Modern Guilt

Year: 2008

Referring to the chemtrail conspiracy theories, "Chemtrails," is a dreamy blend of atmospheric rock that adds a light, lazy tone to "Modern Guilt." Woozy and ambient, the song talks about looking up above and climbing through holes in the sky, though still grounding its ambitions with talks of death and drowning. Like Sea Change, the song is inextricably tied to a pensive sadness, but a snarling backbeat will carry you through "Chemtrails," signalling Beck's contined maturation from his earlier material. It's the sort of heaviness that somehow manages to stay weightless.

Album: Sea Change

Year: 2002

A promo single for Beck's big break-up album, Sea Change, "Lost Cause" was the first taste that fans got of a sincere, more melancholy Beck. After ending a relationship with his fiance, Leigh Lemon, the scatterbrained, Gen-X attitude that had defined much of Beck's career was replaced with a man who had just gotten punched in the gut for what sounded like the first time. What else are we supposed to make of a title like, "Lost Cause?" But Beck never grew maudlin or mopey with his sentiment. It was just a guy who was genuinely sad and, thankfully, had an audience that offered plenty of shoulders to cry on.

Album: Odelay

Year: 1996

Listeners have often struggled to understand Beck's lyrics, and there's no stronger example of his opaqueness than "The New Pollution," a track that opens with poetry so nonsensical that we're left scratching our heads from the start. "She's got cigarettes on each arm/She's got the lily-white cavity crazes/She's got a carburetor tied to the moon/Pink eyes looking to the food of the ages," Beck sings.

It was Dadaist lyricism, spoken with little regard or purpose, a perfect summation of his slacker malaise and ironic intention. Fans have struggled to make something out of "The New Pollution," and have only been left with wild theories, but it shows us that we don't always need to get caught up in meaning and content. Sometimes, it's better to just sit back and listen.

Album: Mellow Gold
Year: 1994 (album re-release)

Don't front like "Loser" wasn't your introduction to Beck.

Originally released as a 12" single in 1993, "Loser" was re-released on Beck's third album, Mellow Gold, after becoming popular on alternative rock radio, and to this day remains his most widely known song. It's incredible, when you think about it, that a weird mish-mash of folk, slacker rock, and hip-hop with surreal, semi-mumbled lyrics and a chorus of "I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?" ever got popular, let alone reached No. 10 on the Billboard charts. But it did, and that is a testament to the skill of Beck and producer Carl Stephenson.

Stephenson's sitar playing and the drum track (sampled from a cover of Dr. John's "I Walk on Gilded Splinters") helps the song be so memorable, but most credit must go to Beck for managing to sing such a catchy chorus while sounding so thoroughly disinterested. "Loser" tapped into a growing sense of disillusionment and helplessness, but was also just damn fun to sing along to, a singular stitching together of musical odds and ends by a singular talent.

Album: Odelay

Year: 1996

A conglomeration of genres, "Where It's At" is the quintessential Beck track, representing the musician's fearlessness in blurring the lines between musical forms and using experimentation as an endless exercise. Sure, there's an album version of the song, but if you listen to Beck play it live, it'll often stray from the Odelay edition. The song is essentially amorphous, using vocal samples, scratching, guitars, and other blends of hip-hop and garage rock to create a prog-genre all its own. In a sense, "Where It's At," may be a descendent of Paul's Boutique-era Beastie Boys, or even Run-DMC, but you'll never mistake as the work of anyone other than Beck.