There have been few albums that can be called revolutionary in the '90s. Sometimes sounds are marketed as new even though they do nothing but rehash old trends.

Beck's Odelay, however, was a truly revolutionary album. It fused sounds with tormented lyrics of pain and joy in a way they have never been fused before.

The question is, how does an artist follow perhaps one of the best albums of the past century? If you're Beck Hansen, you go in a completely different direction. With Mutations, he transformed his image by stripping down his music to a much simpler sound than before and put much more thought and less allusions in his lyrics. But one underlying element exists in Mutations that exists in all of Beck's music — fun, pure unadulterated fun.

In Beck's latest release, Midnight Vultures, he promised to do a pure party album, and he has delivered. Midnight Vultures is a mixture of soul, R&B, hip hop, funk and a little bit of twang blended with dumb lyrics (really more ridiculous than dumb), to create an album that is a retrospective on the '70s, not merely a throwback to it.

Some songs make you laugh, some would normally make you cry (from insanity) and some even make you rewind to make sure that he really did just said, "her left eye is lazy."

Although using a '70s theme, the album definitely has a modern sound. It uses hip-hop, solid guitar and piano riffs mixed with a falsetto voice reminiscent of Prince. In many ways it is unfair to compare Midnight Vultures to Odelay. They were both written and recorded with completely different objectives in mind. One thing they have in common, however, is that they are both complete albums. So many times it seems like artists struggle to create enough content for a full length that they lose sight of the record as a whole. They often struggle to get their few really good songs down and fill up the remaining space with mediocre material.

Midnight Vultures works as a complete album. The album picks a theme and sticks to it, even though that theme may be lunacy. And it should come as a comfort to Beck fans that it seems like he would have no problem doing countless more albums like this. Each song is filled to the max with sound but without muting any part of the song. The synthesizers pop when they are supposed to, the drums beat when they should and the horns always wail when they are needed. One of the best compliments that you can give an album is that it works, and this one does. If anything negative can be said about Midnight Vultures is that it has the possibility of being misunderstood.

Don't misunderstand Beck's music, just love it for what it is, a joyride for the senses.

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