Mellow Gold

Produced by Beck with Tom Rothrock, Rob Schnapf and Carl Stephenson, it was recorded in 1992 and 1993 and released by DGC on 1 March 1994. It reached number 13 in the United States and was certified platinum there and gold in the United Kingdom. AllMusic gave it five stars. The closing track, Blackhole, runs 7:33 and hides a track called Analog Odyssey at 5:49. It was recorded at Carl Stephenson's and Rob Schnapf's houses, mostly on a four-track, and over 1.2 million copies had sold in the United States by July 2008. Rolling Stone also gave it five stars, after first giving it three and a half. Beck once described the idea of the record as a satanic K-tel album found in a trash dumpster. Its working title was Cold Ass Fashion, and Mellow Gold was named after a strain of California marijuana. The robot on the cover, called Survivor from the Nuclear Bomb, was made by the artist Eddie Lopez and photographed by Ross Harris. Samples include Southside Movement's Save the World on two tracks, Billy Squier's The Big Beat and the Melvins' Cow on Soul Suckin' Jerk, and the Melvins' Hog Leg and Care Bears dialogue on Beercan.