Beck makes a break-up album, and it's a self-absorbed yawn-fest. Avoid.

Beck gets Radiohead's producer (Nigel Goodrich), goes psychedelic pop, and frankly, it is less interesting, although the album is still competent.

Mellow Gold on a big budget. It's a whole lot of surface fun, but not to be confused with the original item.

The most intriguing release of 1994 was not anything by Pearl Jam or Soundgarden but this ramshackle entry which ended up taking the country by storm on the strength of the slacker anthem "Loser". The album has not aged that well over the years - nor has much from the 90s, for that matter - but Beck's mélange of seemingly disparate elements makes for an authentic journey, nonetheless.

The group got a second shot on 1972's Mother/Bow to the King, which was a bit lighter in tone, but equally painful in many places.