I hadn't heard that Beck was releasing an eight-song EP of b-sides when I saw Stray Blues in the record store. I was so distracted by the unexpected record and its bad cover art-- a found portrait doctored with psychedelic fluorescent pastels-- that I didn't even notice it was marked $27.50. At first glance, the sketch looks like the work of a bad artist on a bad acid trip. But look more closely... the man represented has a third eye! This is borderline absurd, but Beck takes it to the next level by allowing the third eye to sprout a thought balloon announcing, "A Collection of B-Sides." This is funny, right? Kind of, but not funny enough to get past how ugly and hippie it looks.

Don't let new-age chalks of fuchsia irony fool you, this album is expensive. The $30 price tag for eight b-sides of import singles averages out to just under $4 per song. When I paid for it, I asked the cashier if she knew if Geffen had plans to reissue this material in a package that was less Japanese and less thirty dollars. She didn't know. In my copious research I didn't come across any mention of a domestic release in the near future. So for the time being, the question remains-- are these songs worth $4 each? Let's test out their exchange value together.

First up! Do you spend four of your dollars on "Halo of Gold," track two off Stray Blues, or on a tube of "Lash-o-lishous" mascara from the sale bin at Store-24?

Come on, when are you really going to wear that mascara, anyway? By the time you get around to using it, it'll be all clumpy. In comparison to annoying gobs of black paint covering your eyelashes, Beck covers Alexander Lee Spence's "Halo of Gold" quite smoothly. I haven't heard the original, so I can't comment on Beck's version comparatively, but he's certainly soaked the song in his own style (of that moment)-- the production and overall sound of this 1998 recording is distinctly marked as Mutations-era Beck, complete with sitar, harpsichord-like synths and drug-induced washes of sound under strong choruses. The song works as a lofty platform from which Beck can show off his proclivity for genre-bending pastiche by dropping accents of thin, twangy guitar over dense fuzz-bass. Becks beats Lash-o-lishous.

The next contenders are track three: "Burro" -vs.- a loaf of kalamata olive bread.

I'll admit that citing this level of specificity in baked-goods could only arise from a considerable passion for fancy olives stuck in bread, but this only serves as an example of the potential satisfaction that can be bought for $4. The stakes are high for these songs! While the bread was baked fresh today, "Burro" has been sitting around since 1997. Here, Beck offers his best attempt at lounge-singer vocals (in Spanish) backed by a real Mariachi band.

"Burro" serves as a Mariachi tribute to Beck's ability to take on musical styles and genres like fellow chameleons Ween, Blur, and Neil Young. It's a reptilian tribute to his postmodern game of dress-up, but it's also a vaguely entertaining throwaway track! If one of your friends performed something like this at a Karaokae bar, you might pay $4 to have a video of your friend hamming it up Mariachi style. You'd probably watch it for a laugh once every five years or so. But Beck isn't my friend, and I don't have a video of this performance. I mean, if a song is going to cost $4, I better want to listen to it more than twice a decade. So the kalamata olive loaf wins over "Burro." You knew it would.

Stray Blues' opener "Totally Confused" -vs.- a $3.99 Blockbuster rental of "Dazed and Confused"

I know what you're thinking, Blockbuster has a two-for-one weekday special, so you'll probably get more than just "Dazed and Confused" for the price of this track. To level the playing field, I'm going to throw in track five, "Lemonade," as part of the deal. These songs were recorded in 1993 and 1994 respectively, and it's clear why they didn't make it onto Mellow Gold. They're pleasant enough listens, but they don't hold their own like the infectious "Soul Suckin Jerk" or "Nitemare Hippy Girl" do.

"Totally Confused" lays Beck's raw, slacker-like ruminations on top of a melodic rolling chorus. But "Lemonade" trades off contrasting sounds rather than layering them. A primitive pot- clanking rhythm and incoherent percussive vocals give way to shimmery, over-produced pop arrangements. These hard shifts between contrasting styles could be jarring or annoying. Instead, the thumping racket brings out the driving beat under the soft stuff, and the prissy pop confections work to highlight the more melodic elements in the lo-fi noise. Similarly, "Dazed and Confused" documents style and mood while seeming more like a series of out-takes than a finished artifact. Maybe you want to experience both, but not on a regular basis. It's a draw.

Also included are "Clock," a track with a distinctly '80s sound that was produced by the Dust Brothers, and a rock ballad called "Brother." Beck's guitar work and vocal performance on "Brother" recalls White Lion or maybe Poison's softer side, until you listen more carefully to the lyrics which are strangely smart: "Brother, are you really here/ The package I received is gone/ Are you a phantom detective/ Can you read my soul backwards?/ I would glide with you/ If you are a backwards ghost/ I will hire you."

Stray Blues is a diverse compilation. You could take that as a complement to Beck's stylistic range or as a euphemism for this record's lack of cohesion or theme. But it doesn't try to avoid the word "compilation,"-- it's up front about the fact that it's not an album, but a collection of songs. And the songs are good! However, none of them made it onto Beck's full- length albums for one simple reason-- those records are a lot more than good, and we know that Beck can do better than Stray Blues.

-Kristin Sage Rockermann