Raph_PH · CC BY 2.0

Beck built a career on collage, splicing folk, funk, hip-hop and psychedelia into music that resisted any single genre. His breakout single "Loser" (1993) turned him into an unlikely star, and the albums that followed — Odelay, Mutations, Sea Change, Guero — kept restlessly changing shape rather than repeating a formula that worked. Sea Change (2002) swapped the sample-heavy production for stripped-down acoustic songwriting, showing a range that outlasted the novelty of his early hits. Fifteen studio albums in, he remains one of the more unpredictable figures in American popular music.