There's less than a week until Beck's new album, "Mutations," appears in stores (Nov. 3). But web-savvy fans of pop music's eccentric, genre-bending savior don't need to wait -- they can visit the singer's official website to hear Real Audio versions of new songs "Tropicalia," "Halo of Gold," and "Bottle of Blues" and watch a series of video interviews with Beck about the album.
If the website seems too grassroots to be an official record-label site, you'd be half right: It is Geffen's official site, but without the corporate stuffiness, thanks to Truck, a fan who until last year independently ran the Net's most comprehensive Beck site. That's when label execs approached him. "They started referring people to my site instead of the Geffen one -- no one wanted to go there because it had nothing fans wanted." Now the 19-year-old, who works at an online services company during the day, gets a steady stream of up-to-date info, art, audio, and video materials for his website, which he calls a labor of love.
Truck doesn't get paid for his work, except for the perks that accrue to Beck's webmaster. The best? "Listening to the albums before they come out, meeting Beck, the live netcasts I get to do," Truck says. "That's what it all comes back to -- me loving his music." Truck isn't alone in his praise. "Mutations" earned a "B" from EW music critic David Browne, who calls the acoustic album a "collection of tumblin'-tumbleweeds, mellow-Acapulco-gold melodies with amiable, low-rent charm."
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