Cream of the Local Scene: Musically They’re All Over the Map

The L.A. music scene continued to diversify in 1993, expanding, if possible, on the eclecticism that marked last year’s list. Rap, folk, grunge, roots, new wave, pop-rock, industrial and more are represented in this look at new acts that made the biggest area impact this year .

Beck: The Bob Dylan boy wonder of the coffeehouse scene bounced straight from downtown java jams into one of the fiercest record-company bidding wars in recent memory (Geffen won). Perhaps the unclassifiable Beck sound will become next year’s model--weirdly passive scraps of guitar folk, ragged hip-hop and punk-rock ground up in a Juicerator and spat out as noise.