Buoyed by hit single ‘Loser,’ Beck’s Mellow Gold became an unexpected Platinum-selling success, but it was his next album — 1996’s Odelay — that really put him on the map.

Odelay is one of those albums that come along every five or ten years and receive credit for transforming the musical landscape. But I don’t think you can point to a string of artists who picked up the mantle the way you can with Nirvana’s Nevermind or Radiohead’s The Bends… not artists anybody has heard of, anyway. Beck’s fusion of folk, hip-hop, blues, country, you-name-it, felt brand new and defied imitation.

Odelay featured its share of hits — ‘Where It’s At’ (with its ubiquitous “two turntables and a microphone” chorus), ‘Devil’s Haircut’ and ‘The New Pollution’ were radio and MTV staples — but it works best as a whole. Not every track is a winner (I’ve never been a fan of ‘High Five (Rock the Catskills)’) but every track contributes to the groundbreaking-ness of the whole endeavor. I don’t know if any artist before Beck so obviously traced his roots back to both Bob Dylan and Run D.M.C.

‘Lord Only Knows,’ a highlight of the album, is a country blues number that blends slide, fuzz, acoustic and electric guitars over an insistent drum track. Lyrically, it’s cryptic as usual but not quite the meaningless mish-mash of ‘Loser.’ I find some meaning in this song (whether it’s the intended meaning or not, I don’t know or care). Take these lines in the first verse: “So I’m picking up the pieces and I’m putting them up for sale; Throw your meal ticket out the window, put your skeletons in jail.” They strike me as a clever call for reinvention, something reinforced by the chorus. The second verse has me at a loss, though, I admit.

One bit of trivia… the phrase “órale” — repeated at the end of the song — is Mexican slang, a general exclamation. The engineer working in the studio heard the word as “odelay” and wrote that down on the track’s notes. The misspelling wound up as the album’s title.