On March 1, 1994, Beck released his third studio album, Mellow Gold. As the album turns 30, revisit its cultural impact below.

  1. Mellow Gold presented an unexpected hybrid of various genres including rock, hip-hop, folk, blues, psychedelia, country, and ironic, witty lyrics.
  2. The album’s decidedly anti-commercial attitude led to its unanticipated commercial success.
  3. In a 1994 interview with Rolling Stone, Beck said of the album, “The whole concept of Mellow Gold is that it’s like a satanic K-tel record that’s been found in a trash dumpster, quite matter-of-factly. A few people have molested it and slept with it and half-swallowed it before spitting it out. Someone played poker with it, someone tried to smoke it. Then the record was taken to Morocco and covered with hummus and tabouli. Then it was flown back to a convention of water-skiers, who skied on it and played Frisbee with it. Then the record was put on the turntable, and the original K-Tel album had reached a whole new level. I was just taking that whole Freedom Rock feeling, you understand.”
  4. The album was originally titled Cold Ass Fashion, named after an earlier Beck song. The final title, Mellow Gold, was named after a potent strain of California marijuana.
  5. “Loser” was written and recorded while Beck was at a friend’s house. Although it was spontaneous, Beck claims to have had the idea for the song since the 80s, explaining, “I don’t think I would have been able to go in and do ‘Loser’ in a six-hour shot without having been somewhat prepared. It was accidental, but it was something that I’d been working toward for a long time.”