Best National Male Vocalist

Beck

Hep cat Last year, Beck won it all: Best Vocalist (beating Eddie, Bono, and Ed Kowalczyk), Best Album (trumping U2, Soundgarden, and Bush), and Best Song (pushing aside Rage Against the Machine, the Cardigans, and Oasis). This year, you could say Beck is still coasting on "Where It's At" -- and, okay, a few other songs from Odelay. He hasn't released a new album since, but he's been working the boards. His tours have been huge. And radio still loves him. All with good reason. From an awkward geek a few seasons back who had know-it-alls (that would be, uh, people like me) scoffing at a lame Axis show, Beck has since become a super showman. His appearances on awards shows with a turntable wizard and crack band backing him up have been memorable, Beck fronting the group in a variety of costumes, delivering oddball sounds, nonsensical lyrics, and high-stepping reverie. He makes his hodgepodge of styles and voices fit. Always changing, but always the same, he's a trickster, a shape-shifter, giving us one form through the many (that form usually being a great song like "Where It's At" or "Devils Haircut"). "I am the artist currently known as Beck," he said at one concert, "and you are all my folks!" Hey, God is within thee as thee, dude.

-- Jon Garelick