Beck

Beck is the stage name for the American musician Beck Hansen. He was born on July 8, 1970 in Los Angeles, California. From a very young age, Beck was enveloped in the art world. His father was a Canadian musician, and his mother was a visual artist. His parents split up while he was still young, and he stayed with his mother. In the early 80’s he dropped out of high school and went to Europe. He performed as a street musician to earn his living during his years there. Late in the decade, he returned to the United States to live in New York City.

He returned to his hometown at the beginning of the 90’s, and worked odd jobs while trying to be discovered. He was signed to a minor record label that finally allowed him to get some studio time. He finally found his break when his first single, “Loser,” was played on a local morning radio show. Following the success of that song, he had something of a bidding war as different labels competed to sign him.

Ultimately, Beck signed with a label that offered him less money than other options, but gave him the most artistic license. In 1994 he released his first album, Mellow Gold. It received warm initial reception, though critics labeled Beck a one hit wonder after none of the other songs on the album were able to achieve single status. To date, “Loser” is still the top selling single by Beck.

Initially Beck worked on a folksier album to follow Mellow Gold but in response to critics one hit wonder panning he set the album aside and tried to make a more accessible album instead. The result was his best selling album to date Odelay. It eventually went double platinum. Odelay included such music singles as:”Jack-Ass”, “The New Pollution”, and “Where It’s At”. These singles all found significant radio playing time.

Beck has continued to be a prolific musician since the 1994 release of Odelay, since that time he has released such albums as Midnight Vultures (1999), Guero (2004), and The Information (2006). During this time, the music industry also shifted away from physical album purchases and towards online music downloads. After a rocky start to MP3 downloads via such free programs as Napster and Kazaa, the music industry began settling into a more comfortable relationship with Apple’s iTunes online music store. To date, the most popular iTunes album of Beck’s is Guero. iTunes also tracks the top downloads for individual songs. “Loser” tops that list, followed by “Girl” and “E-Pro” from the Guero album.