90s Alt-Rock Self Loathing Anthems

Um, UMS, it's a bit rich for tearing me a new one for arguing this way on a thread that I started inspired by a piece of slash fiction. If you want a serious debate about the aesthetics of the 90s, go start your own.

By Hipster Homeless, I mean Williamsburg. I mean, people who sofa surf because they are too dedicated to their ~art~ to get a proper job, not people who actually have structural issues with their lives that have caused them to become homeless.

Um, what does this mean?

Olympia, WA

But, the social landscape of the early 90s was pretty different in that regard, to what "hipster" means now. I think that the lines between the two probably have become narrower in the past 20 years, and this is the subject of a billion and one ILX debates already, so we don't need to get into that here.

because they are too dedicated to their ~art~ to get a proper job

beck washed dishes, mowed lawns/operated a leafblower, worked other menial jobs etc. many of which are directly referenced in his early material fyi

I dunno what "structural issues" means - he came from a broken home where both of his parents were flakes and one of whom was a cult member so I just... waht

Yeah, that's only because being a Barista at Starbucks wasn't a career option outside of Seattle yet.

But, I fully admit that this annoyance is probably a lot more about a "type" that I encountered a lot, in NYC in the early 90s, than it is about Beck Hansen as a human being.

If you want a serious debate about the aesthetics of the 90s, go start your own.

― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Wednesday, February 22, 2012 5:50 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i will do no such thing

projection is a wonder to behold sometimes

because they are too dedicated to their ~art~ to get a proper job, not people who actually have structural issues with their lives

Sounds like issues to me, like most 'artist' issues.

Beck's dad arranged Radiohead's "15 Step" for the band's collaboration with the USC Marching Band at the 2009 Grammy's according to Wiki. Weird, huh?

xxxpost

and you, frankly, are being quite mean to beck

Obviously you know way more about Beck's personal life and family than I ever have, Shakey Mo, but, y'know, I was never a big fan, so I never dug into the back story.

Dude, it is not a serious thread. It was based on a slash fiction story. It is all about projection, and our interpretations of rock stars based on our media filtered perceptions of them, and who they remind us of. Sorry if you actually misinterpreted this for anything other than that.

Beck's himself the victim of diminishing returns but at least he can sing and write.

i always figured loser-beck was a stoner busker hippie flake who would tell funny stories at parties [/projectin']

tbh I can't tell from his lyrical doggerel whether Yorke has read Chomsky, much less understood him

I mean, it is specifically that early 90s slacker aesthetic that bothers me. Too many people I knew who dressed like that and played in noise-folk bands and were living this kind of lower east side lifestyle, and you'd actually go back upstate with them, and find out their parents were bankers living in massive suburban houses in Schenectady and there's nothing wrong with being that - you would not have Sonic Youth if it weren't for setups like that. But, not being a huge Beck fanboy, I'm not aware that his back story wasn't that, because he specifically reminds me of so many people who were precisely that. And it just seemed pretentious - not in some cool Brian Eno sort of way, but in a representing oneself as something one has no right to sort of way. Yes, it's an assumption, but it's an assumption based on an experience I had too many times.

Apologies for not having read the man's entire biography before starting a jokey thread. That was remiss of me.

I hate those guys too but you've got problems if you're confusing Beck and Ethan Hawke.

i always figured loser-beck was a stoner busker hippie flake who would tell funny stories at parties [/projectin']

yeah if we're fantasizing about meeting these two dudes at a party, I imagine Beck was the guy in the gas mask throwing things off the roof and doing whippets and Yorke was the miserablist chainsmoking cloves in the corner and attempting to interest people in his reading list

It is kinda funny, though, that people are so willing to take me to task for being kinda mean about Beck when I've been being just as mean about Radiohead, but no one's butthurt on Thom's behalf.

Wait, that's my job, I guess.

tbf, if you are snowhat hippie bum guy, it is much more awesome to have rich parents than poor ones.

Obviously you know way more about Beck's personal life and family than I ever have,

lol my research = paying attention to his lyrics, scanning his wiki entry a few minutes ago

no one's butthurt on Thom's behalf.

thom is eternally butthurt (plaintively) on thom's behalf. like, he's got that shit covered.

tbf I may be feeling overprotective about Beck after scanning some early threads about him a little while ago and being startled by the relentless invective/hatred/dismissal from ILM circa early-2000s

yeah if we're fantasizing about meeting these two dudes at a party, I imagine Beck was the guy in the gas mask throwing things off the roof and doing whippets and Yorke was the miserablist chainsmoking cloves in the corner and attempting to interest people in his reading list

YES! This is much more the spirit.

I dated that guy. Every damn time. I never learned. So I'm voting for the Creep, not the Loser. :-P

lol my research = paying attention to his lyrics, scanning his wiki entry a few minutes ago

Nope, you're right, I've never actually done either of those things.

iirc the popists despised him as a talentless poseur and the indie-ists (?) despised him for, I dunno, getting too popular or something.

you can't win

Aaaawww, now you're making me feel sorry for Beck. It's OK, he has a ~very nice time~ with Thommy in the fic.

lol

I was hoping it was slashfic about two songs, not people.

'hoping'

Slash-up meets mash-up, that'd be kind of awesome, actually.

who wants to get small?

It is kinda funny, though, that people are so willing to take me to task for being kinda mean about Beck when I've been being just as mean about Radiohead, but no one's butthurt on Thom's behalf.

Wait, that's my job, I guess.

― White Chocolate Cheesecake, Wednesday, February 22, 2012 6:10 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

apology accepted. i will forward it along to beck.

the internet seems unsure if beck is 5'4" or 5'7" btw

The author of the story has just suggested that there's really only one way to settle this: NAKED MUD WRESTLING.

If Beck is 5'7" then I'm 6 foot and change.

Thom Yorke's exact shortness has long been the subject of speculation and debate. He is tiny, though. Like, pocket sized. I reckon Thom 5'2" and Beck 5'4".

The author of the story has just suggested that there's really only one way to settle this: NAKED MUD WRESTLING.

sensing a fairly vague distinction between reporter and subject here

LOL, um, no. If I'd written slash about Beck, I'd have researched the subject a little better, and would have known his background. You can go look on cheesecake archive if you don't believe me.

beck: sufficiently dirty but insufficiently dronerock

i'd love to, but i have to wash my hair

xp

This is reminding me of old conversations about "Entertain Me": YOU WRITE EVERY STORY ON THIS SITE, DON'T YOU?!?!? DON'T YOU!?!?? Um, do I look like I have the time?

beck: sufficiently dirty but insufficiently dronerock

LOL

I really am gonna go to bed this time. Please feel free to going back to discussing musical and/or aesthetic considerations in my absence, heh.

Projectin' time. I have this stuck in my head as a thoughtworm and yeah, I know, I should go and write my fan fiction on atease because ILX is sick of it, but that place is a fucking tedious pile of teenagers spouting banal shit about their cats and actually shouting at you if you wanna write intensely about Radiohead. I'm less drunk and sleep deprived and flippant so I'm gonna have another stab at it.

Both songs are kind of one-trick ponies based on riffage, but the difference in my reaction really is about the characters portrayed. I'm not sure if I'm talking about the characters in the songs, or the public image of the artists that created them - but my impressions are not about the real people.

That the Loser character is this fun, happy go lucky stoner dude who makes a total joke of his own pathos while being the entertaining wacky guy at parties. But both the song and the character project this underwhelming sense of shallowness - and the lasting impression is a kind of emptiness that is just as much an affectation as the clove-smoking Creep in the Joy Division t-shirt. (Whether that affectation is a front for a homeless kid from a broken home with one parent who's a cult member - or a borderline trustafarian whose dad actually owns a studio in LA, that's not really the point.) I don't even really buy the whole subversive act, like writing songs about "giant dildoes crushing the sun" and singing "MTV makes me wanna smoke crack" - while being played on MTV heavy rotation - it's such an empty gesture, it signifies nothing, it's just this kind of shrugging wacky laughter in place of a real reaction. He sings this dismissive song-diss about the "nitemare hippy girl" (or however he spells it) but it comes across as projection because he is equally the nitemare hippy boy, he seems just as shallow as the world he's laughing at.

And yeah, the Creep is the pretentious guy in the corner smoking cloves in a Joy Division t-shirt while holding up a book of Pablo Neruda to prove that he is just so above everyone else at that party - dudes like that are fun in their own way if you go up to them, ask to bum a clove off them, quote Emily Dickenson at them, challenge them for their opinion on Movement vs PCL then steal their beret and walk off with it and make them dance to Sprockets. Not that that has ever happened to me, mind.

But as fucking annoying as the Creep character is, the song is just more instantly relatable than the happy go lucky stoner dude. It's the way that those coruscating guitar ker-CHUNG strikes just absolutely mirroring the sickening sucker punch feeling in your gut when your own insecurities just take the wind out of you. That feeling of worshipping someone from afar, of being all "OMG you are the most beautiful person in the entire universe" and then, they turn up at your gig, and instead of being all "yeah, check out my band I'm a rock star..." like you felt five minutes ago, you are instantly reduced to being an unsettled, insecure teenager again, hiding behind your clove cigarettes and your Joy Division t-shirt too terrified to talk to anyone and too angry at yourself to do anything else.

I'm never going to be the Loser, I don't even aspire to being the Loser, he just irritates the shit out of me, because he's the kind of guy that turns up to a party and everyone makes a big fuss out of him coz he's so much fun, like, don't you see through this? But the Creep? I've been him. We'd be buds.

Which also reminds me that the character from Underwhelmed, he probably belongs in this thread, too.

Underwhelmed rocks... Although all of the third party candidates mentioned in this thread, including my own, don't belong in this poll as much as Loser and Creep.

There's way too much debate regarding facts and theories about Beck and Thom Yorke that are somewhat interesting, but make no difference in the way I hear either of these songs, or any of their music, really..

I decided to choose "Loser" because "he hung himself with a guitar string."

Write in vote for:

SKEE-LO - I WISH

I decided to choose "Loser" because "he hung himself with a guitar string."

― billstevejim, Friday, February 24, 2012 3:30 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that line was fire! love it

Oh snap it's alt-rock, sorry. Ok... let's see:

Beck is tongue in cheek, mocks hip-hop and 90s teenage-angst and it samples Johnny Jenkins's I Walk on Gilded Splinters.

Creep rip-offs the Hollies, wears its heart on its sleeve and it makes me feel ashamed to say I like Radiohead with certain people.

But that's the same thing it boils down to, for me. I have so much more love and appreciation for ppl or songs that wear their hearts on their sleeves than those that wrap everything in layers of irony and mocking and hip name-checking.