Mutations

Beck and Godrich, who had produced Radiohead's OK Computer, recorded it at Ocean Way in Hollywood from 19 March to 3 April 1998. Beck and his band wrote the songs in fourteen days, and twelve made the album. Godrich was about to return to England, which fixed the schedule, and the aim was to capture the musicians live rather than cut and paste as on Odelay. Beck had permission from Geffen to release it on Bong Load, but Geffen released it against his wishes and he filed a lawsuit. It reached number 13 in the United States, where it went gold with 586,000 sold by July 2008, and number 24 in the United Kingdom. It won a Grammy. Pitchfork scored it 9.0 and Rolling Stone gave it four stars. The singles were Tropicalia, Cold Brains in Australia and New Zealand and Nobody's Fault but My Own in Japan, with no videos, and Beck played Tropicalia and Nobody's Fault but My Own on Saturday Night Live. The cover photograph of Beck tangled in plastic wrap is by Autumn de Wilde. The final track, Static, runs 11:20 and ends with a hidden song called Diamond Bollocks. David Campbell wrote string arrangements for it.