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The mercurial indie songwriter Beck is the king of his own, hand-made sonic empire. Fans pick up a new Beck album not knowing what they're going to hear-it could be surreal, white-boy raps or plaintive acoustic ballads-but knowing it's going to sound like Beck, and that's a good thing. After releasing a series of independent albums, he tapped a Gen X vein on 1994's major label debut Mellow Gold. The stiff-funky single "Loser" saw Beck unleashing a volley of self-deprecating rhymes and even throwing Spanish shout-outs influenced by his LA upbringing. "So this is what white rap is going to sound like," the critics said. But Beck was written off as a one-hit wonder until his critically acclaimed follow-up Odelay showed the world he was a serious musical talent. Blending folk, rap, classical samples and rock riffs, Beck and the cutting-edge production duo The Dust Bros. made something unprecedented, and the singles "Where It's At," "Devils Haircut" and "The New Pollution" sound as fresh and weird now as they did then. Since dropping those two pioneering discs, Beck has released an eclectic series of genre/concept albums. In 1998 he surprised everyone with Mutations, a collection of acoustic bossa nova tracks, recorded as a tribute to the psychedelic pop genre Tropicalia that flourished in Brazil in the 1960's. And on 1999's Midnite Vultures Beck got aggressively funky with a set of tight bass and futuristic sound effects aimed straight at the pelvis. Singles "Sexx Laws" and "Hollywood Freaks" sound like a band of robots getting down with James Brown. Fans follow his genre bending eagerly, proof that whatever he does, Beck does it his way.

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