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Odelay

1996 studio album by Beck

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ1067721 ↗
Source-derived summary

Odelay is the fifth studio album by American musician Beck, released on June 18, 1996, by DGC Records. The album featured several successful singles, including "Where It's At", "Devils Haircut", and "The New Pollution", and peaked at number sixteen on the Billboard 200. As of July 2008, the album had sold 2.3 million copies in the United States, making Odelay Beck's most successful album to date. Since its release, the album has been lauded by critics and has appeared in numerous publications' lists of the greatest of the 1990s and of all time.

Recording

Beck approached Odelay with trepidation. "I thought Odelay might be the last time I got a chance to make a record,” he told Rolling Stone in 2008.

The sessions for what would become Odelay originally began as a subdued, acoustic affair. In 1994, Beck started to record tracks for his follow-up to Mellow Gold with Bong Load producers Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf. Together, they recorded the melancholy album-closer "Ramshackle". He would eventually abandon work with Rothrock and Schnapf, opting to work with the Dust Brothers instead.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Odelay” as 1996 studio album by Beck. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Odelay, studio and album.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1996, 2008, 1994—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1996-06-17. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Odelay, studio and album providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Odelay”, the useful work is to connect “1996 studio album by Beck” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1067721. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1996, 2008 and 1994.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Odelay”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Odelay primary sources, Odelay archive and Odelay research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Odelay” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.