The ripple effect of this unique moment was quick: an Alternative Nation juiced on slack-hop funk-pop like Eels, Cornershop, Cibo Matto, Forest for the Trees, Primitive Radio Gods, Bran Van 3000, Soul Coughing, and Len.
#Beck loser full#
His major-label debut, Mellow Gold, spread that genre-melding junk-shop art-rock across 13 tracks: offbeat poetry that drew the line between Highway 61 Revisited and Ultramagnetic MC's, fuzz-grunge bluster, a blues song about washing dishes, junkyard percussion, a kazoo solo, a Care Bears sample, Velvet Underground-y drone ragas, and a hidden noise suite called "Analog Odyssey." It's an album of both protest ("Give the finger to the rock 'n' roll singer/As he's dancing upon your paycheck") and inscrutable turns of phrase ("Touch me on the inside with a finger full of gravy" or the immortal “Like a giant dildo crushing the sun”) taking a warped prism to his job, his neighbors, and-in his most iconic chorus-his own rapping abilities. It was quite the introduction to postmodern folkie b-boy-where the b could stand for beat poetry, Bob Dylan, Beastie Boys, Beat Happening, or Boredoms. "Loser" snowballed from 500-edition indie release to college radio to modern rock radio to major-label bidding war to Geffen deal to MTV to its eventual enshrining in the bronze of a Weird Al polka medley. "Loser" was recorded on an 8-track recorder in producer Karl Stephenson's living room and featured slurred gibberish-rap, a funky acoustic guitar loop, sitar, and an instantly indelible chorus that was catnip in the age of angst. Hence the chorus: I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me.In between 1993 and '94, 23-year-old Beck Hansen went from a coffeeshop singer, cassette tape hustler, and self-described leaf-blower guy to an unlikely pop star with a Top 10 single. When he heard the song played back at first, he thought of himself as a horrible rapper.
Beck wrote a rap for the song and tried his best to emulate bombastic voiced lyricist Chuck D of Public Enemy. John’s “I Walk on Guilded Splinters”), his own sitar playing and some more samples. Stephenson made the beat for the song, looping a bit of Beck’s guitar playing, adding the drum track sample (from Johnny Jenkins’ cover of Dr. “It was accidental, but it was something that I’d been working toward for a long time.” Six Hours “I don’t think I would have been able to go in and do ‘Loser’ in a six-hour shot without having been somewhat prepared,” he said to Elle in 1999. He introduced the artist to record producer Carl Stephenson and it was at Stephenson’s house where Beck wrote “Loser.” He’d said, though, that while the song was written there spontaneously, he’d had the concept for years. Tom Rothrock of the indie label Bong Load was interested in working with Beck. “‘Loser’ was an extension of that.” Big Break and Bong Load “I’d be banging away on a Son House tune and the whole audience would be talking, so maybe out of desperation or boredom, or the audience’s boredom, I’d make up these ridiculous songs just to see if people were listening,” the artist said in 1997 to Entertainment Weekly. He worked low-paying jobs (like “ alphabetizing the pornography section” in video stores) and gigged when he could.
Coffee HousesĪs a young struggling musician, Beck was homeless, both while living in New York City and LA. It came out on Beck’s debut LP, Mellow Gold. The song then spread like wildfire, leading the songwriter to sign a contract with Geffen. His indie label that put out the song, Bong Load Custom Records, sold out of copies. For the Los Angeles rooming house-born Beck, it was a breakthrough. The song began getting airplay on commercial stations, particularly on KNDD in Seattle with Hall of Fame DJ Marco Collins and on KROQ in LA. Originally, the song was the second single ever released by Beck. But what is the story behind the song? And where did the now-52-year-old Beck come from? KNDD and Marco Collins
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