#ThrowbackThursday: Beck: From “Loser” to Grammy Winner

by Sean Smith

This past Sunday night the music industry gathered in Los Angeles for the 57th Grammy Awards show. British crooner Sam Smith was one of the night’s biggest winners, walking away from the Staples Center with 4 golden gramophones. One of the night’s biggest surprises, and more talked about moments, came when Beck won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Beck’s Morning Phase beat out some pretty stiff competition to take home one of the night’s most prestigious awards. Other nominees for Album of the Year included Ed Sheeran’s X, Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour, Pharrell Williams’ G I R L, and Beyonce’s self-titled album. We were all not only shocked to hear Beck’s name announced as the winner, but we were then further shocked to see Kanye West start to make his way on stage seemingly in the process of recreating his infamous 2009 VMA moment when he interrupted Taylor Swift. Now of course Kanye stopped short of making a scene and went back to his seat without incident, however he did voice his displeasure with Beck beating out Beyonce for the Album of the Year Grammy in a post show interview with E! saying “Beck needs to respect artistry and he should have given his award to Beyonce.”.

Since Sunday night’s events, Kanye West has been facing quite a bit of backlash for his post ceremony comments. So what could be viewed as an opportunity to do some damage control, Kanye called into Ryan Seacrest’s radio program to try and further explain his comments. As he is known to do, Kanye had a lot to say about it all, but he made sure to give Beck his due. “When I said that thing about respect artistry, I think it came off the wrong way, and that was a mis-wording on my part, because obviously Beck is one of the most respected artists and [he] respects artistry.”

If you have a few minutes you should definitely check out Seacrest’s interview with Kanye, as he not only talked about the Grammy’s but also some future plans to work with the woman he first interrupted back in 2009, Taylor Swift.

Kanye West Explain Grammy Stunt and Talks Plans to work With Taylor Swift 

Ryan Seacrest Productions

However, in light of Beck taking home the Grammy for Album of the Year, this week we take the opportunity to remember one of Beck’s first singles with “Loser”.Beck’s “Loser” was originally released as a single while he was on a small independent label, Bong Load Custom Records, in 1993. The song caught on at a few college radio stations, then picked up by a couple rock stations, prior to  finally catching the attention of a few major labels who became interested in signing Beck. He  ultimately signed with DGC Records, a subsidiary of Geffen Records, and “Loser” was rereleased to a wider audience in 1994. This time around the song caught more than just a few ears at college radio. “Loser” gained mainstream popularity, and charted as high as #10 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was, and to this day remains, Beck’s highest charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, It is also his only one to break into the top half of that chart, his next highest charting single being 1996’s “Where It’s At” which peaked at only the #61 position.So this week, in honor of Beck’s Grammy success this past weekend, we remember the most commercially successful song of his career, his 1993 single “Loser”. Enjoy!

Beck

“Loser”

From: Mellow Gold

Bong Load Custom Records/DGC Records