Why did Beck hate the rise of MTV?
It was one of the most confounding hits of the 1990s, incongruously scoring the decade’s alternative slacker apathy yet detesting its media-pushed stereotype. With its unique mulch of hip-hop beats and anti-folk slide guitar, Los Angeles’ Beck unwittingly provided American Gen X with its most jadedly surreally anthem, a stoner rap traipse that takes Bob Dylan’s ‘talking blues’ lyrical splatter with an extra dose of sardonic irony.
‘Loser’ was conceived as a throwaway, its eventual success further adding to the cut’s perverse story. When playing in small venues and coffee houses, barely in his 20s, Beck would improvise raps to make his friends in the audience laugh and to keep the crowd engaged during his conventional songs.
After signing to the independent Bong Load Records in 1991, a collaboration with Geto Boys producer Karl Stephenson, and together wrote and recorded ‘Loser’ in a few hours, Beck exclaiming, “I’m the worst rapper in the world – I’m just a loser!” and instantly titling the impressionistic hip-hop sketch.
Sofa-surfing and playing tiny stages early in his career demanded a level of grit and elbow grease not typically found in the average ’90s slacker. Keen to shake off the stubborn perception wrought from his hit single’s droll swagger, Beck recalled the noisy talking points that buzzed around ‘Loser’s MTV premiere: “The guy on the air was talking about all this slacker stuff, saying that ‘Loser’ was like some slacker anthem or something. I was like ‘What?’ I said, ‘Turn off the TV.’ I was like ‘Slacker, my ass'”.
He ranted further: “I mean, I never had any slack. I was working a $4-an-hour job trying to stay alive. I mean, that slacker kind of stuff is for people who have the time to be depressed about everything.”
A contempt for MTV has been apparent since his ‘MTV Makes Me Smoke Crack’s curt examination of MTV’s glossy clash with dour reality. It’s easy to forget, but before the cable channel’s semi-reinvention with 120 Minutes or Beavis and Butt-Head MTV was long past its initial hip explosion, associated with hair metal and glitzy pop, the alternative underground was railing against. Beck was no exception, eager to avoid the corporate need to shove an artist into an easily marketable mould.
“That ‘novelty’ aspect of popular MTV music is so encouraged by every side of the business that most bands can’t help but play into it,” Beck told K Records’ Calvin Johnson. “And the way the audience is developed, they want to hear the one song, then they want to hear someone else’s one song. The situation with ‘Loser’ was strange and awkward because the song was a personal joke and wasn’t originally intended to be released. It was already two or three years old by the time it got popular. It’s like an old spectre that won’t go away.”
Beck ultimately had his cake and ate it, mega label Geffen snapping him up yet still permitting indie distribution and throwing $14,000 on Steve Hanft’s video atop a shooting budget of $300. Shooting to be number one on Billboard‘s Alternative Airplay and its Mellow Gold album becoming a Platinum seller, ‘Loser’ would enjoy heavy rotation on MTV whether Beck liked it or not.
