50 facts you didn’t know about Beck

Learn 50 things about singer, songwriter Beck.

1. Beck Hansen known by the stage name Beck, is an American singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist.

2. Beck rose to fame in the early 1990s with his lo-fi, sonically experimental style, and he became well known for creating musical collages of a wide range of styles.

3. His later recordings encompass folk, funk, soul, hip hop, alternative rock, country and psychedelia.

4. Beck has released 12 studio albums, as well as several non-album singles and a book of sheet music.

5. Born in Los Angeles in 1970, Beck discovered hip hop and folk music in his teens and began to perform locally at coffeehouses and clubs.

6. Beck moved to New York City in 1989 and became involved in the city's small but intense anti-folk movement.

7. After returning to his hometown in the early 1990s, he cut his breakthrough single "Loser", which became a worldwide hit in 1994.

8. His 1996 album Odelay produced hit singles, topped critic polls and won several awards.

9. Beck released the stripped-down Mutations in 1998, and the funk-infused Midnite Vultures in 1999.

10. The downcast, acoustic Sea Change (2002) showcased a more serious Beck, and 2005's Guero returned to sample-based production.

11. The Information (2006) was inspired by electro-funk and hip hop, and Modern Guilt (2008), likewise, by 1960s music.

12. In February 2014, Beck released the album Morning Phase. It won Album of the Year at the 57th Grammy Awards on February 8, 2015.

13. With a pop art collage of musical styles, oblique and ironic lyrics, and postmodern arrangements incorporating samples, drum machines, live instrumentation and sound effects, Beck has been hailed by critics and the public throughout his musical career as being among the most creative and idiosyncratic musicians of 1990s and 2000s alternative rock.

14. Two of Beck's most popular and acclaimed recordings are Odelay and Sea Change, both of which were ranked on Rolling Stone‍‍ '​‍s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

15. The four-time platinum artist has collaborated with several artists and has made several contributions to soundtracks.

16. Beck is married to actress Marissa Ribisi.

17. Bect was born in Los Angeles, to David Campbell, a Canadian-born musician, and Bibbe Hansen, a visual artist and former Warhol superstar.

18. Bibbe's maternal grandmother was Jewish, while Bibbe's father, Al Hansen, was partly of Norwegian descent.

19. Beck has said that he was "raised celebrating Jewish holidays", and that he considers himself Jewish.

20. Beck's mother grew up amid New York's Andy Warhol Factory art scene of the 1960s, but moved to California at age 17, where she met Campbell.

21. His father is a Canadian-born arranger, composer and conductor who worked on hundreds of albums and numerous films.

22. Beck began life in a rooming house near downtown Los Angeles.

23. As a child, he lived in a declining neighborhood just off Hollywood Boulevard. "By the time we left there, they were ripping out miles of houses en masse and building low-rent, giant apartment blocks," he later recalled.

24. The lower-class family struggled financially, moving to Hoover and Ninth Street, a neighborhood populated primarily by Koreans and Salvadorian refugees.

25. Beck was sent for a time to live with his paternal grandparents in Kansas, with Beck later remarking that "I think they were kind of concerned" about his "weird" home life.

26. Since his paternal grandfather was a Presbyterian minister, Beck grew up influenced by church music and hymns.

27. Beck also spent time in Europe with his maternal grandfather, Al Hansen, a visual collage artist and a pioneer in the avant-garde Fluxus movement.

28. After his parents separated when he was ten, Beck stayed with his mother and brother in Los Angeles, where he was influenced by the city's diverse musical offerings-everything from hip hop to Latin music and his mother's art scene-all of which would later reappear in his recorded and published work.

29. Beck obtained his first guitar at 16 and became a street musician, often playing Lead Belly covers at Lafayette Park.

30. During his teens, Beck discovered the music of Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore and X, but remained uninterested in most music outside folk until many years into his career.

31. The first contemporary music that made a direct connection with Beck was hip hop, which he first heard on Grandmaster Flash records in the early 1980s.

32. Growing up in a predominantly Latin district, he found himself the only white child at his school, and he quickly learned to breakdance.

33. When he was 17, Beck grew fascinated after hearing a Mississippi John Hurt record at a friend's house, and spent hours in his room trying to emulate the finger picking of the country-blues guitarist.

34. Shortly thereafter, Beck explored blues and folk music further, discovering Woody Guthrie and Blind Willie Johnson.

35. Feeling like "a total outcast", Beck dropped out of school after junior high. He later said that although he felt school was important, he felt unsafe there.

36. When he applied to the new performing arts high school downtown, he was rejected.

37. His brother, Channing, took him to post-Beat jazz places in Echo Park and Silver Lake.

38. Beck hung out at the Los Angeles City College, perusing records, books and old sheet music in its library.

39. Beck used a fake I.D. to sit in on classes there, and he also befriended a literature instructor and his poet wife.

40. Beck soon began a stream of menial jobs, including loading trucks and operating a leaf blower.

41. Beck's musical style has been considered alternative and indie.

42. Beck has played many of the instruments in his music himself.

43. Beck has also done some remixes for fellow artists, notably David Bowie and Björk.

44. Beck has been known to synthesize several musical elements together in his music, including folk, psychedelia, electronic, country, Latin music, hip hop, funk, soul, blues, and many types of rock.

45. Beck has an irreverent style of sampling, often using such sources as obscure films to splice together cuts of people talking in the background of his music, or various other found sounds to create sound collages in the background of his music.

46. During 1998, Beck's art collaborations with his grandfather Al Hansen were featured in an exhibition titled "Beck & Al Hansen: Playing With Matches", which showcased solo and collaborative collage, assemblage, drawing and poetry works.

47. Beck's nine-year relationship with designer Leigh Limon and their subsequent breakup is said to have inspired his 2002 album, Sea Change.

48. Beck married actress Marissa Ribisi, the twin sister of actor Giovanni Ribisi, in April 2004, shortly before the birth of their son, Cosimo Henri.

49. Beck has self-identified both as Jewish and as a Scientologist.

50. The 1986 punk rock musical film Population: 1, starring Tomata du Plenty of The Screamers, features a young Beck in a small nonspeaking role.

Source: Wikipedia.org