There are few contemporary artists who can claim to be as diversely talented as Beck Hansen. With a career that has taken in rough and ready blues, hard rock, hip hop, tropicalia and electronica, to name but a few, he has become the foremost musical chameleon of his generation

Born in Los Angeles in 1970, Bek David Campbell was fascinated by music from an early age. When his parents separated, he took on his mother Bibbe's surname. After a period of travelling the world he returned to America to concentrate on his music. Destitute and relying on various low paying jobs to survive, he ended up living in a friend's shed. All the while he continued to work on his music, a mixture of lo-fi blues, folk and noise. Taking whatever gigs came his way, and jumping on stage to play unannounced after other band's shows, his determination eventually paid off.

In 1993, his song Loser became a hit on college radio stations in America. An album, Mellow Gold, soon followed. By the time of his second album, 1996's Odelay! Beck was riding high on a wave of critical and commercial success and had become an instantly recognisable figure, known for his stunning live shows and the unpredictability of his music. Even so, it was still something of a surprise when his fourth album, Midnite Vultures, ditched the blues and hip hop for a ludicrous collection of neon pink Prince pastiches.

Without doubt, one of the silliest albums ever recorded, every second of Vultures is packed with over-the-top innuendo, tongue-in-cheek sleaze and camp swagger. Opening track Sexx Laws is all Benny Hill funk, while the rest of the album takes in robot electro, sardonic R&B and warped gospel. Best of all is the closing track Debra, a sincere love song until the lyric, "I want to get with you, and your sister" comes in. For all the Prince comparisons though, the album it bears the most resemblance to is David Bowie's 1975 Young Americans, another album by a skinny white man designed to recast soul and funk in his own peculiar image.

Midnite Vultures was released in November 1999 and met with cautious praise by critics. The NME placed it in their top 10 albums of the year and Select magazine called it the last great album of the millennium. Others were less keen however. With lines like, "I can smell the V.D. in the club tonight" some found Beck's appropriation of R&B a bit too cutting. A recent article in Q magazine even went so far as to list it in their 50 worst albums of all time feature. An overreaction, perhaps, but it's true that this is the Beck album most often glossed over by casual fans. More dedicated listeners, however, have found a complex and intelligent record that gets better with every play. It's a smart, funny album that manages to be clever without being smug, and revels in the excesses of its genre, rather than mocking them. Give it a few years and people will look back on Midnite Vultures as the classic it really is.