(Credits: Beck)
Wed 28 January 2026 2:00, UK
Part of what made Beck’s breakout single ‘Loser’ one of the defining hits of 1993 and a celebrated anthem of the ‘slacker generation’ was that it was, by any measure, an authentically low-budget, hand-made piece of art, the absolute antithesis of, say, whatever Aerosmith was doing at the time.
Released on the tiny independent label Bong Load in an original pressing of just 500 copies, ‘Loser’ became an unexpected sensation on the Los Angeles rock station KCRW, inspiring a sudden influx of interest from major labels, all seeking out the next potential alt-rock posterboy. At least a dozen label reps flocked to the LA venue known as Al’s Bar to see Beck play a set in the summer of ‘93. It was a scouting mission, but Rob Schnapf, one of the owners of Bong Load Records, wasn’t sure these outsiders quite grasped what Beck Hansen was all about.
“God damn, this is a real weasel fest,” Schnapf told LA Weekly before the Al’s Bar gig, “I don’t know what they expect to see, but Beck’ll scare off the weakhearted”.
‘Loser’ certainly sounded like it was hot off the presses: its weird mash-up of hipster folk-rock and loop-heavy hip-hop felt like new territory and yet very much of its moment, as if Pavement and the Beastie Boys had had a baby. In reality, Beck had recorded the song over two years earlier, way back in January of 1991, essentially during a goof-around session in producer Carl Stephenson’s living room in LA, using a simple eight-track tape machine.
Beck, who was just 21 years old and scraping by on part-time retail wages, had been developing the seeds of the track during his open mic gigs, but in one afternoon, Stephenson helped him refine it into something coherent, looping a bit of Beck’s slide guitar as the central riff, adding a hip-hop beat, and tossing in some freestyle sitar playing of his own. Beck’s nonsensical rapping didn’t exactly impress Stephenson, but according to legend, that minor embarrassment actually inspired him to freestyle the song’s chorus: “I’m a loser, baby, so why don’t you kill me?”
“It’s pretty weird,” Beck confessed to LA Weekly in 1993, as ‘Loser’ was still rising up the charts, “We put out this 12-inch, get a little radio play, and then all of a sudden everybody wants a piece of me and wants to say that they had a hand in discovering me. But I’m still trying to discover myself.”
There were dollar signs in the eyes of Beck’s suitors, to be sure, and a general cynicism born from the post-Nirvana explosion in all things alternative and indie. The image of the musician as a sort of Bohemian, gonzo slacker made sense for the moment, but it’s hard to imagine anyone foreseeing just what a long and consistently interesting career he was about to embark upon, jumping from funky electro dance-pop to sombre and lushly orchestrated folk tunes without ever seeming out of his element. It’s doubtful Beck would have imagined it himself.
“I’m happy that they all like what I do,” he said before ultimately signing with DGC Records, “but picking a record company is kind of like choosing the best ATM machine. It all seems like a fluke to me anyways. It’s like having an empty closet and one day you decide to open it up, and there’s 5,000 hot dogs in it. And that’s cool, you know, but you close it up and go about your life for a while, and then one day you think about opening it, and there will either be 20,000 hot dogs stuffed in there or maybe just a couple of wieners layin’ around on the floor. Either way, it’ll be cool, because you’ve still got a closet.”
The 1990s truly were the heyday of not knowing how many hot dogs might show up in your closet tomorrow.
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