"Loser" - Beck

After dinking around on his acoustic guitar as part of the late 1980's Anti-Folk Scene (Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean!), Beck ended up back in his native Los Angeles in 1990 with a mission. Choosing to live a creepy drifter lifestyle, Beck spent a few years of his life pretending to be an early twentieth century hobo. Woody Guthrie, anyone? Hello! Anyone we know? Think, McFly! Think! And so, after opening up for now painfully outdated bands like Ethyl Meatplow and Possum Dixon, young Mr. Hansen was noticed by a couple of blokes who ran a record label, for you see, Beck was playing a little gem at a coffeehouse called Jabberjaw, and the song in question was entitled "Cut 1/2 Blues." The blokes liked this tune aplenty, and after a brief 15 minute set (In which Beck was quite probably strumming a banjo while wearing a Stormtrooper Mask, as was commonplace at the time), the blokes then approached the little elf and told him of their independent label Bong Load and asked him if he wanted to hammer out some songs. Beck was indeed interested, as he had been mostly recording on a crude analog 4-track, and of which, one of the tracks wouldn't work, so in Beck's case it was a 3-track.

A Hip Hop producer named Karl Stephenson who had worked with the Ghetto Boyz in the late 80's was along for the journey, and Beck's "Loser" was cut in a living room in roughly three hours, as to who's living room it was, I am uncertain. Karl had a fancy drum machine and a beat was looped with Beck's neat little slide guitar lick, and thus, Folk Rap was born! Beck brought Talking Blues into the late twentieth century and gave it a delicious Beat Poetry bliss that would leave even Bob Dylan himself choking on a few splinters of his own. Funny thing is, Beck's "Loser" sat around for a couple of years and was not released on Bong Load until 1993. By this point, Beck had made a name for himself as an inventive live performer. He had club gigs regularly in LA, and was in a side project called Loser, appropriately enough, which was a short-lived comedic Death Metal outfit in which Beck served as guitarist and would regularly pop out of a coffin on stage and Rock a violent solo, the lead vocalist of Loser was none other than the director of the "Loser" music video. This chap went by the name of Steve Hanft, and apparently met Beck some years earlier at a Melvins concert. The lyrics for "Loser" in part were inspired by Hanft's then unreleased surrealist comedy called "Kill The Moonlight."

When Bong Load records finally gave the "Loser" single the OK in 1993, it was released on delicious 12" vinyl and the B-side was another weird number that would appear on "Mellow Gold" the following year entitled "Steal My Body Home." The song was one of those classic moments in Pop, first it became popular locally in Southern California, and then all over College Radio, and then finally mainstream radio in America and then the world! Beck initially took his fame with a grain of salt, having at this point already released his fair share of Indie Rock outings, such as "Golden Feelings" and a single called "MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack." This was a new kind of artist on a mission, and Beck made good use of his fame, and if anything, 1994's "Mellow Gold" proved that Beck wasn't quite ready to go commercial, and certainly, the chaotic circus act that was the "Mellow Gold" tour made this painfully clear. For a short while, Beck was a highly experimental artist and a Pop star at the same time. Later, his music would match his income, but in '94 he appeared to exist in a void. Beck's musical world was certainly a bizarre little playground at this time, and his prodigious recorded output equaled a total of three albums in a single year. Needless to say, it was an enjoyable time to be a Beck fan, and it is safe to say that the wide array of songs that make up his early material is a legacy unto itself that could easily rival any of the commercial drivel Beck has released in more recent years, and indeed, is impressive enough to even rival Dylan at his finest.

I will now leave you with the "Loser" music video that we all know so well, as it clues you in as to the sort of public relations approach that Beck offered up during his early years in the spotlight, which could only be referred to as an anything goes approach, as was often the case with the music he was making at this time as well...