1994 was the year of Beck Hansen. In that one year, Beck released his major-label breakthrough Mellow Gold, his K Records bedroom-folk masterpiece One Foot in the Grave, and his epic punk-label oddity Stereopathetic Soulmanure. I was 12 years old, and I loved them all. But the one I put on the most was Stereopathetic. Not because it was the easiest or most pleasant, but because it was unlike anything I had ever heard. A sprawling 25-track assortment of noise-rock, field recordings, lo-fi country, live street performances, skits, and samples from a friend's low-budget movie, the album opened my young ears to genres and sounds I'd never previously considered listenable. 25 years after its release, it's striking what a distinct artist he was from the very beginning. With his range of influences and the unmistakable style he placed upon everything he did or tried to do, he could have established himself as a cult icon had he followed any of the potential paths presented on the album. But, decidedly, he followed none of those paths. Instead, he made lounge music and orchestral-pop, psych-folk, trip-hop, bargain-basement hip-hop, and bizarro R&B. Even if I don't care for most of what he's done in the past decade-and-a-half, he's nonetheless building up arguably one of the wildest and most varied discographies of any living artist.

by Joshua James Amberson