By this point, Beck is a cliched comparison for any rock artist who uses a cut-and-paste aesthetic and heavy sampling. However, in the case of Self frontman Matt Mahaffey, the comparison is justified. Mahaffey has similar pop and hip-hop influences, with the extra street cred of having been an actual hip-hop record producer before he decided to move into rock. He recorded his first album, 1995's Subliminal Plastic Motives, as a one-man band, and the record was filled with chunky guitar anthems spiced with hip-hop beats and synthesizer squiggles. It was sort of Odelay crossed with Cheap Trick, released a year before any of us knew Beck was even capable of Odelay. After Self got dropped by its old label, Mahaffey put out an "interim EP" on his own label, Spongebath, called The Half-Baked Serenade." From the title and the liner notes it was clear that this was just ten songs of Mahaffey goofing around in his home studio instead of trying to make a great rock record like his first. Signing to Dreamworks and releasing the long-awaited Breakfast for Girls was supposed to be Self's big breakthrough into the mainstream - surely the first album had the songwriting chops and sound for stardom. Except that Breakfast, now that it has been delivered, ends up coming off less like a big rock record and more like The Half-Baked Seranade, Part II. Although Mahaffey uses members of his touring band on record here for the first time, it is still clearly his show, and his excesses show in a way they didn't on the first album. The cut-and-paste pastiches sound great, but the edges of the pieces simply don't match up with each other and the whole album sounds rather disjointed. Not to say it isn't enjoyable, but every time Mahaffey has a good idea it gets tweaked until it is just a little too weird. For example, "Kill the Barflies" is a driving rock song with the hilarious chorus "They're scheming on a way to get you into bed," but Mahaffey distorts his voice in the verses so that they are impossible to follow. "Meg Ryan" is a fun little tune about dating a movie star, but Mahaffey stops the rhythm in the middle to tinkle on the piano for a few seconds. There are plenty of great songs here - a head-bopping little sixties organ number called "Uno Song," the symphonic ballad "Better Than Aliens," the rocker "Suzie Q Sailaway" -- but Breakfast for Girls isn't going to catapult Self to stardom. If you want a really enjoyable listen for your twelve bucks you would do much better to hunt out the band's first album. Besides, give it about six months, and there will be dozens of promotional copies of this record dumped on bargain bins across America. -Aaron Schatz