Once hair metal had lost its novelty and began to blend into an undifferentiated mixture of emotional power ballads and simple songs about lusting after women, rock fans began to long for ingenuity in their music. When Nirvana ushered in the age of alternative rock, fans were still hungry for innovation within the genre. Beck Hanson, known professionally as Beck, stated in a 1997 interview with Rolling Stone, “I think my whole generation’s mission is to kill the cliché.” Rock fans and artists were fully embracing what the genre means, and rebelling against norms within the genre to give fans the modern music that they desired. Beck was at the forefront of the rebellion, pushing the boundaries of rock and helping to create a culture of acceptance of different styles of rock. Although his music is classified as rock, aspects of folk, anti-folk, hip hop, funk and country are laced into each of his albums, creating a vibrant collage of genres. Beck’s determination to combat conformity through his diverse, genre-bending music are prevalent throughout his career and reflect a larger shift toward creative experimentation in rock music.
Alternative rock is not a typical rock genre. Before it became mainstream, “alternative” simply referred to any rock bands that did not sound like the kind of music that was played on MTV. Since there were so little constraints for the genre, when it became mainstream, popular rock could sound like anything from grunge to shoegaze to nü-metal. Bands were able to blend their music with wildly different genres such as punk and country while still receiving mainstream recognition. Beck might have been a one hit wonder if not for alternative rock’s toleration of musical exploration. His hit single “Loser” was stereotypical of the subgenre known as “slacker rock,” an apathetic form of alternative rock that includes bands such as Pavement and Sonic Youth. Two years after “Loser” made it to number 10on the Billboard Hot 100, however, “Where It’s At” and “The New Pollution” from Beck’s Odelay made the charts too—“Where It’s At” even won him a Grammy for his vocal performance. The song is reminiscent of old school hip hop, with Beck rapping the verses, a call in response chorus repeating, “Where it’s at / I got two turntables and a microphone,” and with samples littered throughout the song. It has alternative rock elements too: Beck’s voice is often heavily distorted and there is a smooth guitar riff under the verses. Both “Loser” and “Where It’s At” have elements of hip hop; however, the latter is arguably more of a hip hop song than a rock song. Nevertheless, alternative rock is such an inclusive genre, that the song was still considered rock. The qualifications of a rock song in the ‘90s were expansive, and the lines between rock and other genres like hip hop and pop began to blur as artists started letting go of old-fashioned conventional rock.
In the ‘90s, the sound of rock music was not the only thing changing within the genre. Songs with simplistic lyrics and shallow meanings gave way to more well-constructed and meaningful songs. It was yet another way that artists like Beck resisted conformity and brought creativity to rock music. Beck’s lyrics were poetic, often including bizarre metaphors and unconventional phrasing that made the meanings of some of his songs so hard to decipher that they were considered nonsensical by critics. Lyrics like “Got a devil’s haircut in my mind” spark confusion in online music forums and frequently get labeled incoherent ramblings. Despite many of his songs, especially on Mellow Gold and Odelay, sounding completely meaningless, Beck rarely wrote songs without putting consideration into the meaning of them. He has admitted that a few of his songs have lyrics that were ad-libbed over a beat and left unchanged, but they still convey a message even if it is hard to interpret from Beck’s unedited ramblings. His explanation for his cryptic lyrical style in songs such as “The New Pollution” was, “I’ve written hundreds of songs, and I got bored of saying things the same way.” His lyrical poetry was in direct opposition to lyrical styles popular in previous forms of popular rock like hair metal that Beck rightfully claimed sounded “pedestrian.” His lyrics brought creativity and nuance to the rock genre. Beck also seemed to get bored of singing things the same way. Nearly all of his quirky, upbeat albums like Midnite Vultures and Guero are separated by a slower, more introspective album like Mutations or Sea change. His ballad-heavy albums land more in the category of singer-songwriter than alternative rock—Pitchfork even likened the folky, sensitive style of One Foot in the Grave to that of Leonard Cohen. Releasing music in such contrasting styles was a risk for Beck. Mellow Gold had made him known for weird, rap-infused alternative rock, so putting out sincere ballads could have garnered him a similar reception to that of Metallica’s Black Album: outrage at straying from his genre. The albums instead brought nuance to the way fans and critics viewed Beck, and Mutations was so well respected that it won him a Grammy. In the world of alternative rock, duality could be celebrated.
Beck’s fame skyrocketed after his song “Loser” became a staple on college radio stations. The song’s lo-fi sound, apathetic vocals, and self-deprecating lyrics made it fit neatly into the subgenre of slacker rock, and because that was the public’s introduction to Beck, he was quickly labeled the king of slacker rock. Beck rejected the label, disliking the way it portrayed him as lazy as well as narrowed down his music into one small category. He often felt like the music industry manipulated him into looking like a version of a rock star that he was not. He shared with Mark Kemp of Rolling Stone that he was upset about how a recent magazine had altered his appearance on the cover, saying that it wrongly portrayed him as a “junkie.” Beck hated being pushed into a box. He felt like fame took some of the nuance away from artists by pushing artists to be a certain way and creating simplistic depictions of them. Beck said to Kemp, “How can you sum up my life — or any life—in a paragraph in USA Today? It takes all the dignity and all the expansiveness out of it.” Beck wanted the freedom to choose how he and his music were represented and that is why he fought so hard to break down stereotypes of what rock and roll had to be through his music.
The ‘90s was a time for exploration in rock music where artists were fusing genres and finding new ways to be rock stars. Experimental artists like Beck were able to obtain popularity without feeling the need to conform strictly to one style of music. Alternative artists broke down the system of a linear progression of popular rock and rebuilt the genre as a welcoming opportunity for different subgenres to coexist within the mainstream. An examination of Beck’s discography and attitude toward music indicates the determination to resist conventionality that alternative rock musicians held in the ‘90s, a principle that gave artists permission to experiment creatively with their music while still achieving mainstream success. Alternative music like Beck’s might not always sound exactly like true rock, but the spirit of rebellion against the ordinary that alternative artists share proves their music to be an unconventional yet undoubtedly pure form of rock and roll.
Thanks for this analysis, Clara! Beck is cool.