![]() ![]() 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. For as the great poet laureate Tennyson once wrote, “’Tis better to have loved and lost…” than to have just been a loser your entire life.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. Of these two kinds of losers, Beck’s is clearly the most piteous. ![]() Beck’s loser is an ostensible “never-was” a pathetic shell who can’t ever seem to get it right. Always has been, always will be.įor The Beatles, losers are akin to “has-beens.” They’re those poor folks that had something great before it was cruelly snatched away. With a bilingual flourish, Beck moans, “Soy un perdedor/ I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?” Between choking on splinters, hoarding food stamps, and shaving his “face with some mace in the dark,” the singer has absolutely nothing to feel good about. Amidst a barrage of free associative lyrics that border on nonsensical (“get crazy with the cheese wiz!”), the singer decries his lowly existence while wondering why he’s even allowed to go on living. He’s totally incapable of jiving with his community they’re a different species altogether. Leading with a bluesy slide guitar, Beck immediately establishes an inability to fit in with his peers (“In the time of chimpanzees/ I was a monkey”). According to the eclectic troubadour, these jocular exercises, along with personal inadequacies about his rapping prowess, inspired his breakthrough single, “Loser”. Confronted with aloof and indifferent coffeehouse audiences, Beck would tap satirical, joking ditties to determine whether anyone was actually listening. ![]() Though Beck’s “Loser” was spontaneously written and recorded in a single six-and-a-half hour session (!), the song’s concept sprung from his days as a vagabond NYC musician back in the late ‘80s. But Beck’s definition is even harsher his loser is a wretched pariah that’s never won anything worth losing in the first place. For The Beatles, being a loser is about having it all and then watching it slip away. ![]() Artists from The Beatles (I’m a Loser”) to Beck (“Loser”) have self-identified as “losers”, chastising themselves for failing to make the grade or letting someone special walk out of their lives. Drawing on the defeatist fatalism that’s inherent to the blues, musicians debase themselves to reveal cluelessness, inadequacy, and ineptitude. It turns out that exposing your flaws and faults to the world can be surprisingly satisfying. Self-mockery has always been an important part of rock music. Last time, he charted the shared craziness of Heart and Gnarls Barkley, and this week he’s finding the shared loserdom between The Beatles and Beck. Welcome to Two for Tuesday, an ongoing bi-weekly series where Consequence of Sound’s Henry Hauser will take two ”unlikely pairs” in music and compare, contrast, juxtapose, and evaluate the commonalities between both parties. ![]()
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