A clear one hit wonder novelty single of the incoherent drugged-out ramblings of a slacker has turned out to be anything but. Despite following this up with an unexpectedly successful decades long career, this first impression is so iconic that it has become lens through which we see all things Beck. We’re long since overdue to pull the record back and take another listen to what we thought we heard. What is stranger, the phrase “get crazy with the cheez whiz” or the idea that it could be a key part of dystopian narrative told with a messianic fervor? “Mellow Gold” went platinum on the success of it’s three singles and their accompanying music videos. Together “Loser,” “Pay No Mind (Snoozer),” and “Beercan” form Beck’s Subliminal Slacker Scientrilogy.

The aesthetic of “Loser” comes from Beck and producer Carl Stephenson’s mutual understanding of hip hop as the contemporary folk music as tempered by Beck’s inability to rap. Upon discovering the voice he wanted was not the voice he had, Beck began the first of many reinventions as he went an almost alchemical transformation from loser to gold. Having watched the outlaw voice of the oppressed move from Dylan’s singing to Chuck D’s shouting, he split the difference and joined them with Beck’s subverting. The backwards vocal samples on these singles is not a random trippy effect, they are instructions fo understanding their greater meaning. Don’t confuse the artist with the narrator, this is a man with a strong work ethic, awake to the truth of the world, and he doesn’t even drink, but he’s here to save you.

Mass media manipulates image and language with a powerful magic that programs the unaware. Of this truth, Beck was aware on a genetic level, the spawn of a composer and a Warhol devotee, he was the grandson of a Fluxus artist. Popular music in the physical nature of MTV was a force of nature which Beck feared and resented, and doubly so after the surprise success of “Loser” had him tapped to be it’s representative and initiate. He was about to enter the belly of the beast through it’s two heads which he called “drive-by body pierce.”

The early 1990s were defined by two youth movements that were disenfranchising to the point where their negativity seemed almost pre-ordained. The militancy of Public Enemy was eclipsed by the public enemy of Gangsta Rap, and it’s glorification of crime in drive-by shootings and drug dealing. This coincided with a new market of users via the heroin chic of Grunge, body piercing in the figurative sense growing in popularity hand-in-hand with the literal. Asleep since they were born, the children were being disarmed before they knew they had any power, before they had any chance. Beck’s accidental “slacker anthem” had him reluctantly ushered into the industry and onto MTV, he was in the mold of Kurt Cobain, a loser.

To package himself for MTV, Beck enlisted Steve Hanft to direct the video. The two had previously collaborated when Beck contributed music to Hanft’s film “Kill the Moonlight.” This film turns up in the sample “I’m a driver, I’m a winner, things are going to change I can feel it,” as well as various footage spliced into the video. This is just one example of the image acting as an amplification to a pre-existing musical cue. The video nods heavily to the work of Maya Deren, avant-garde film maker and voodoo enthusiast, a perfect match for the instrumental sample from Johnny Jenkins’s cover of Dr. John’s voodoo heavy “I Walk on Guilded Splinters.”

Bookended by Beck entering wearing a Stormtrooper helmet and exiting asking “Sprechen sie Deutsch, baby?” we are guided through the fascist dystopia of “Loser” by four interconnected visual realities. There are lo-fi color sections, primarily from “Kill the Moonlight” and early Beck performances; black and white segments, owing most of their influence to Maya Deren; standard color footage, taking place outdoors; and finally red and black tinged scenes of a literal and figurative negative image. It’s through this visual system that Beck explains the nature of the “Loser,” and where he himself stands in relation.

The “Loser” is someone who, as though drugged by a voodoo spell, witnesses Christ’s resurrection yet refuses to believe. These scenes are shot with standard color footage and represent the truth of the present. Bursting out of a coffin is an old man and his guitar, it’s Beck returned as the ressurected spirit of folk music. This is seen by the “Loser” who is wearing a jester’s cap, wearing a T-Shirt with the word “Loser” inside of a “Jesus Fish,” and is obviously stoned. He’s so stoned and unaware that when a Jesus look-alike playing guitar on top of his house, appears in an easy metaphor, he writes it off as being an effect of the drugs.

Negative images are clouding the perception of the “Loser,” as informed by death squeegee painting this negative red and black image across your vision. As an example of negative images we see two girls dancing with death. The coloration and those dancing girls are exactly the type of negative imagery presented in the video for Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Grunge music is being used to harm us, by making us harm ourselves. Beck was once under the illusion of these false negative images, we see him in red and black playing a flaming guitar, just like the flaming guitar he is playing in the videos of his early concert performances – this is his past, and Beck has escaped it. He wants to help us escape, which is why he is using a flaming squeegee to clear the negative images from our eyes. Beck carried his own coffin through this negative land to find his salvation.

The way to avoid being a “Loser” and find freedom is black and white. We see the coffin of the ressurection moving through this black and white land, follow the coffin. The past Beck in the negative world with his flaming guitar, is shown jumping out of the woods carrying a flaming guitar. This pairs nicely with another nature shot of a man doing a flip into water. They key to salvation is to follow the ressurection and be baptised. Our next image is of Beck, in the world of the present walking along the shore in a “sun” filled world, as he exits the baptismal waters. Beck has saved by finding Christ. Or has he?

The fact is Beck is not a Christian, he is a Scientologist. What happens when we reread this video through the lens of Scientology? In this case, the black and white world is just as false as the negative red and white world. The black and white Beck opening our eyes with the flaming squeegee has the same stoned grin as the “Loser” who is witness, but see falsely. It’s not that the “Loser” fails to see Christ because he is stoned, he sees the illusion of Christ because he is stoned. The black and white world is also under the voodoo spell, and the real ressurection does not occur until that is also left behind. This is why the coffin does not open up in the black and white world, because like the negative world it remains a world of death. It’s not that Beck was baptised and saved, it’s that he walked away from the false illusions of Christianity and other false stories and really opened his eyes. The ending to the video is actually a sequence of four shots: baptismal jump into the water, lo-fi scene of two spacemen in the past, Beck in the true present exiting towards the right hand of the screen, and finally the coffin exiting to the screen’s left side by a chain link fence.

This bring us to the music video for “Pay No Mind (Snoozer),” and the opening audio is different form that of the album and single version. On the versions sold in stores the opening is “This is song two on the album. This is the album. Burn the album.” However, here we just have a slowed down distorted voice as if some prior message has been removed. Now Beck is inserting a tape and pressing record, it’s time for his message, so what could it be? Well I’ve watched enough late night TV to recognize the cover of Dianetics when I see it, and here we immediately have an exploding volcano.

Beck is outside playing music, while wearing a shirt that says “Rock Me.” Intercut are images of a diamond, a young skateboarder, and old ladies drinking tropical cocktails with American flags. The image of musicians like Beck is used to sell you on what you thin is a rebellious “Alternative” choice like skateboarding. However, you are still being programmed from a young age. Skateboarding on top of the bar is not rebellion, but the first step of getting you into the bar. At the same time, that barely legal looking girl is being initiated into the bar and drinking by the older ladies. Eventually you will see this girl and “rock her” with a diamond. Now you can all raise a toast together in the bar, you’re rebellion is over. At the end of the video we see a lava flow exiting to the screen’s left, similar to the ending of “Loser.” We then cut to a policeman running to the left into a Police Department, as if he is working for the authorities to chase down the actual rebellion. This might tie into all those images of spacemen and UFO like flashes that are superimposed over the entirety of the video.

“Rock Me” also fits as a reversal of Nirvana’s “Rape Me,” while suggesting some sort of biblical punishment for the one creating these negative images. Maybe these are all just coincidences, or maybe there’s a theme running through all three of these videos. Maybe we should Pay No Mind, well, whatever, Nevermind. Before we ge to the third and final single, “Beercan,” let’s take a moment to look at the lyrics of “Loser” and “Pay No Mind (Snoozer).”

Loser

In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey

- The monkey is to a loser as the chimpanzee is to the human. Beck is here to help along in your spiritual evolution.



Butane in my veins So I’m out to cut the junkie

- There’s fire in his veins and he’s hear to destroy false programing images like that of Nirvana’s smack slack.



With the plastic eyeballs, Spray-paint the vegetables

Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose

- Introduction of the idea of a totalitarian fascist state through imagery of the contemporary supermarket. We’re being monitored in a prison and kept docile with food that is not nutritious, we’re being kept like pets. The beefcake is the false celebrity tabloid imagery and romance novels at the checkout. They are a false sexed up image being sold to the sexless panthose set.



Kill the headlights And put it in neutral

Stock car flaming’ with a loser in the cruise control

- This is a reference to the plot of “Kill the Moonlight” and a metaphor for the “Loser” living under false perceptions. Three keywords for you to google: Marcab Race Track.



Baby’s in Reno with the vitamin D Got a couple of couches, Sleep on the love seat

- Dense imagery of the ills of the world, evil for evils sake of “[shooting] a man in Reno, just to watch him die,” the illusion of Jesus Christ - Vitamin D as “sun.” Reno is also a city of vide with vitamin Divorce and gambling leading to societal breakdown and poverty - going from a bed, to a couple of couches, to alone on a love seat.



Someone keeps saying’ I’m insane to complain

About a shotgun wedding And a stain on my shirt

- Along with the destruction of relations is the creation of false relations that trap us. Yet there is a programming voice telling us to ignore our legitimate complaints.



Don’t believe everything that you breathe

You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve

- You’re told that all that’s true is Death (a maggot on your sleeve) and taxes (a parking violation), but there is a higher truth out there.



So shave your face with some mace in the dark

- Feel free to stay in the dark about the realities of the facist police state we are living.



Saving’ all your food stamps and burning’ down the trailer park

- Anger and a false savior will not help you.

(Yo. Cut it.)

[Chorus]

Soy un perdedor

I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?

- There are multiple languages being spoken at once. Just because you avoid being programmed one way, doesn’t mean you’ve escaped all the methods.

(Double-barrel buckshot)

- Subliminal suggestion to kill yourself. Pretty eerie given Beck’s negative opinion of Nirvana, and Kurt Cobain’s ultimate fate. Is this the beginnings of a Beck and Courtney conspiracy theory?

Soy un perdedor

I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?

Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare banned all the music with a phony gas chamber

‘Cuz one’s got a weasel and the other’s got a flag,

one’s on the pole, shove the other in a bag

- I don’t really want to touch this one with a ten foot pole, but here are two questions: Why have these lines been ignored for so long? How do you think he spells weasel?



With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose-job

The daytime crap of the folksinger slop

- These false negative perceptions are being fed to us by the recording industry. Avoid glamorizing these false musicians and their lifestyles. It’s the same life, except there are drugs like Cocaine and the false ego that they create ….



He hung himself with a guitar string slab the turkey-neck

And it’s hanging’ from a pigeon wing

- … which also includes false sexualization of these musicians, helping them look “hung.” Well, they might think they’re getting a good deal, but they’re also getting “hanged” – their fate is sealed. They are stuck in the prison they have helped create, it’s just that these pigeons have decided to sing for better treatment.



You can’t write if you can’t relate

Trade the cash for the beat and body for the hate

- Their music is false. They’ve whored out their body and soul to help created hatres and false images. In the end it’s not about the content of your music, it’s about pay-for-play, that’s how you get on the air. Beck seems to know how the industry works. I wonder if this relates to a 500-pressing single all the sudden getting a ton of air time on KXLU, KNDD, and KROQ.



And my time is a piece of wax falling’ on a termite

Who’s choking’ on the splinters

- Daliesque surreal imagery that Beck has recorded to vinyl to preserve for the future. Beck once explained “he was living on the roof of a shack and saw a termite up there chilling with a 40, and it started choking, but he was unable to save it.” These are the “Guilded Splinters” of the voodoo spell.

[Chorus]

Soy un perdedor

I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?

(Get crazy with the cheeze whiz)

- Subliminal message: down at the dog food stalls, spray-painted vegetables now in aerosol cheese form. Stay fat and docile.

Soy un perdedor

I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?

(Drive-by body-pierce)

- Subliminal message: check out the latest negative fashions, we got Gangsta Rap and Grunge, choose your own destruction.

(Yo, bring it on down)

Soooooooyy….

[Chorus backwards]

- There’s an actual subliminal message going on in this song, and it’s the reverse of the chorus.

(I’m a driver; I’m the winner; Things are gonna change I can feel it)

- Subliminal message: stick with what you’re doing, just go through life on auto-pilot – in the cruise control – and everything will work out, we’ve got it all programmed. Maybe things have already changed around you, but in a way you don’t realize.

(Sprechen sie Deutsch, baby?)

- You hear this kind of language and you recognize it right away, for the fascist image reference. This is the old language, this is what you know to avoid.

Soy un perdedor

- Beck is here with a new image, speaking a new language, and this is the message they want you to get from him:

I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?

- That’s the “Alternative” you’re really being presented:

(Know what I’m saying’?)