Beck enters the sleek Los Angeles restaurant a bit cautiously. If he were a dog, he would be sniffing the wind. For this is not really his sort of place — it pushes food with names like Nice Bass, for starters.

Small in stature but deep in voice, Beck has a slept-in-his-clothes look about him: a few days' beard growth and a striped shirt that emits a gamy but not-unpleasant smell. His deadpan, measured way of speaking also differs wildly from the fast-talking crowd that schmoozes furiously around him. He studies the menu. He looks confused. "I'm... gonna have... the...." he begins — the elegant black-clad waitress leans in closer, straining to hear — "the Lettuce ... Entertain You ... salad," he finishes. "Dressing?" she chirps. "Oh ...," he says. Tick, tick, tick. The waitress stares. "Um ... the ... balsamic?"

A former street musician, Beck belongs in a category all his own. Smart, funny and strange, he floats along in his own time-space continuum. He seems unattached to any particular group or generation despite the slacker albatross around his neck since his 1994 hit, "Loser," off his debut, Mellow Gold.

"Lately, people have kind of stopped asking me about it, which is good," Beck says. His exceptional new album, Odelay, should prove that Beck's "Loser"-driven success is no fluke. Maybe, God willing, Beck will even cease being known as that "Loser Guy."

As he did on Mellow Gold, Beck soaks up music from what seems to be every genre and splatters it spin-art style throughout his songs. Blues, country, rap, jazz, rock — all present and accounted for. In fact, Beck says there is no musical genre he would refuse to take on. "Before, I'd have to say reggae, but I think I might be open to that," he says, thoughtfully chewing his Lettuce Entertain You salad.