Beck’s Reinvention: Scientology, “Loser,” Odelay and the Mystery Behind the Music
For more than three decades, Beck’s reinvention has been one of the defining features of his career. From the unlikely breakthrough of “Loser” and the sample-heavy experimentation of Odelay to Mutations, Midnite Vultures, Sea Change and beyond, Beck has repeatedly shifted musical identities while keeping much of the person behind the music remarkably difficult to pin down. In this episode of Booked On Rock, author Josephine Riesman joins me to discuss her book The Last Temptation of Beck: The Untold Story of a Pop Messiah and what she discovered while trying to separate the real Beck from the mythology surrounding him.
We explore Beck’s unusual family and artistic upbringing, his early years in New York’s Antifolk scene, the accidental creation and enormous success of “Loser,” his fear of selling out, and the creative leap that produced Odelay. Riesman also discusses Beck’s complicated history with Scientology, his relationship with his father, arranger David Campbell, and the heartbreak behind Sea Change. From his earliest experiments to his later work, the conversation examines Beck’s reinvention not simply as a musical strategy, but as a key to understanding one of alternative rock’s most elusive artists.
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