Beck

Los Angeles

Beck was born Bek David Campbell in Los Angeles on 8 July 1970 and later took the name Beck David Hansen. His father, David Campbell, is a composer and arranger who would write string parts for several of his albums. His mother, Bibbe Hansen, was the daughter of the artist Al Hansen, from whom Beck learned collage, a habit of mind that runs through his records.

He got his first guitar at 16 and played on the street and on city buses. In 1989 he took a bus to New York with about eight dollars and a guitar and joined the anti-folk scene at the Chameleon Club. He returned to Los Angeles in early 1991, worked at a video store in Silver Lake and played clubs such as Al's Bar and Raji's.

His early work came out on small labels: Golden Feelings on Sonic Enemy in March 1993, Stereopathetic Soulmanure in February 1994, and One Foot in the Grave on K Records in June 1994. Loser was first pressed as a 12-inch on Bong Load on 8 March 1993, in a run of 500 copies. That July he gave his first worldwide live radio performance on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic. Geffen A&R director Mark Kates signed him in December 1993 on a non-exclusive contract that let him keep releasing records on small labels. DGC reissued the single in January 1994, and Mellow Gold followed on 1 March, reaching number 13 in the United States and going platinum.

Odelay

Odelay, released on 18 June 1996, began as a quiet acoustic project with Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf before Beck switched to the Dust Brothers and spent most of 1995 at their Silver Lake studio. It piled up samples, pawnshop synthesizers, sitar and pedal steel, and produced a run of singles: Where It's At, Devils Haircut, The New Pollution, Sissyneck and Jack-Ass. It reached number 16 in the United States, sold more than two million copies there, and was named best album of 1996 by Rolling Stone, the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll and NME.

At the 1997 Grammys it was nominated for Album of the Year and won Best Alternative Music Album, with Best Male Rock Vocal Performance going to Where It's At. Beck toured it for more than 150 shows between July 1996 and September 1997. In a 2026 Guardian interview he said the Dust Brothers were too busy after Odelay to produce his next two albums in full.

the best album Beck has ever made

David Fricke, Rolling Stone, 2002, on Sea Change

Mutations to Sea Change

With Nigel Godrich producing, Beck recorded Mutations in two weeks in spring 1998 and won a Grammy for it. Geffen released the record against his wishes after he had arranged a Bong Load release, and lawsuits between Beck and the labels followed. Midnite Vultures arrived in November 1999, a turn toward party funk with Johnny Marr and Beth Orton among the guests.

Sea Change, released on 24 September 2002, followed the end of his nine-year relationship with Leigh Limon. Most of its songs were written in about a week, shelved, and then recorded with Godrich and a band that included Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and Smokey Hormel, with strings by David Campbell. It reached number 8 in the United States and number 1 in Norway. Beck called the sessions a reunion of sorts, and tracks such as The Golden Age and Lost Cause became permanent fixtures of his sets.

Guero and after

Guero came out on 29 March 2005 after 18 months of touring, and returned him to the Dust Brothers and to sample-driven pop. Its lead single E-Pro topped the Alternative Airplay chart, and the album debuted at number 2 in the United States with 162,000 copies, his best chart debut. He was seriously injured while filming the E-Pro video and limited his touring for several years afterward.

The Information followed in 2006 and Modern Guilt, made with Danger Mouse, in 2008. In 2012 he published Song Reader as sheet music, and in 2014 Morning Phase won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Colors (2017) won two more Grammys, and Hyperspace, made with Pharrell Williams, appeared in 2019. In 2023 he released the single Odyssey with Phoenix and toured with them. His fifteenth album, Ride Lonesome, came out on 18 September 2026 with Godrich mixing and the Sea Change and Morning Phase musicians back, and The Guardian called it a stunning end to the heartache trilogy of Sea Change and Morning Phase. A tour begins in Boston on 17 October 2026.