Upstairs, Just Goonin'

Beck’s “Loser” and  Radiohead’s “Creep” face off in our fourth matchup of the Jacktical Magic tournament.

Amelia and Cooper bite off more than they can chew with these early songs from two massive artists. They also pitch a jingle for Rancho Cucamonga, spend a lot of time making fun of the Brits, and learn that you can’t get music in prison.

Which song will be declared the winner and move one step forward to the title of having the most Jack FM energy?

Your vote decides.

Cast Your Vote: Each week, vote for the song you think has the most Jack FM vibes at instagram.com/jackticalmagic/

Call the Hotline: Tell us which song you think should win next week’s matchup. Leave a voicemail at (424) 666-1711.

Email Us: Send your Jack FM stories, questions, memories, or music anecdotes to jackticalmagic@gmail.com.

Theme Song: ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ by The Chills. Used with permission.

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open
• 1:13 Theme Song
• 1:23 Introduction
• 7:11 Recap
• 8:20 Matchup- Loser vs Creep
• 11:56 Beck
• 44:00 Radiohead
• 1:01:52 Loser and Creep’s Jack FM Vibes
• 1:10:00 Amelia and Cooper’s Verdict
• 1:11:49 Listener Voicemail
• 1:13:52 Results
• 1:16:04 Call to Action
• 1:17:35 Next Week’s Songs

Transcript

Jacktical Magic Episode 005

Amelia Hi, Harmony Heads! Hello, Melody Mouths! this is Amelia. I want to apologize for the

delay. We really aim for a Thursday morning release. Uh, so if you're hearing this Friday night.

Saturday morning. Oops. I took over the editing for this one. Cooper took a new job. So he's

been at the ICE training facility all week. Uh, but should be back to editing the next one. Um,

also, he had been talking about a Groupon he got for an indoor go kart track. So between you

and me, I think he's there now. Um, so, yeah, this is a longer episode, partially because I'm

sloppy at editing and partially because Cooper and I were just not as peppy as usual this

record. My New Year's resolution was to try to go easy on the cussing, the swears. Uh, so I

had a more deliberate pace, trying to be more intentional with my words. Uh, Cooper. He was

speaking slowly because just as I hit record, he chugged a two liter of Faygo root beer and

was constantly turning his head away to burp the entire recording. It was disgusting to hear,

and I hated having to look at it, honestly. Uh, anyway, it's a hell of an episode. I hope you

enjoy.

Cooper Welcome back to Jacktical Magic. A critical examination of North America's most

baffling radio station, Jack FM. My name is Cooper Willis, and I'm joined today by my co-host,

Amelia Scannell. Hi, Amelia. Hello.

Amelia Happy new year.

Cooper Yeah. First official episode of the New year.

Amelia Yeah. And it's it's mid January. So this episode is going to have a quick turnaround. It's

going to have a very live. Yeah.

Cooper We could we could like go through the news right now. Yeah I can't believe what

[insert name] did to [insert name.] The weather here in Chicago is [insert weather.] It's actually

nice today. It's a nice day despite my hat.

Amelia The hat's great.

Cooper It's doing a little cover work today because the hair is unruly.

Amelia A little forgiving.

Cooper Got to get to sports clips.

Amelia Or is that what you're working on? Sports?

Cooper No, I meant for my haircut.

Amelia Is a Haircut place.

Cooper That's a haircut franchise that has sports games on so that you can keep up on all

your sports.Amelia And the carpet is an end zone or something.

Cooper Yeah, and it's covered in beer and semen.

Amelia Hardest, the hardest way to sweep up hair is astroturf. Do they have like, a scoreboard

or something?

Cooper Yeah they do actually. When you sign up to get your haircut, you're like on a

scoreboard. Like, you're like, on deck. What do you think the need is for men to have a themed

barbershop? You can't just go somewhere and get your haircut for the fifteen minutes it takes

to give you a buzz cut without having to, like, watch a sports game, because it might question

your masculinity. Like, what is that about?

Amelia They weren't meeting a need they were catering to, like people weren't going to

Hooters. Past tense.

Cooper R.I.P.

Amelia Because there was nowhere to eat. So that's like Clinton era where the the economy,

they were just creating businesses for the hell of it, right? I don't know, I haven't had a haircut

in like three years, maybe. Maybe longer. So I can't weigh in on that.

Cooper But I highly recommend you don't go to sports clubs.

Amelia Okay. Why do you go to sports clubs then?

Cooper The only reason I go is because there's one lady who cuts my hair correctly. Like, she.

She's like the first lady in the history of my life that's given me a haircut that I like. Yeah, I'll just

nod my head when she asks me a sports question. I'll say, I can't believe that game myself.

Amelia Are they required to? Is that like in the break room? They have to go out on the floor.

They have four or five sport questions or.

Cooper Yikes. Before you're allowed to sit in the chair, you have to answer one.

Amelia No, I mean, like the manager has a huddle beforehand.

Cooper I like that.

Amelia I want you guys asking, who the. Did Mr. Dude blow it this weekend? Uh, did Mr.. Did.

Mr.. Fella, do you think he's getting into the Olympics? The Olympics?

Cooper Just calling them Mr.. Also.

Amelia Do you think Mr.. Fella is going to get into the Olympics.

Cooper Next time I go get my hair cut at sports clips? That's what I'm going to ask her when I

sit down and just let it sit in the air and see. See what happens? Do you think so? Do you think

Mr. Fella's gonna get into the Olympics? Just a quiet fifteen minute haircut. After that.Amelia There should be a an airport themed haircut place. Yeah, where it's got that cool flip

Flipboard. Like like those little.

Cooper Hey, by the way, that was an amazing sound. That sounded just like it. How'd you do

that?

Amelia I'm just going to. You have your Johnny impression. I have the board that no one uses

anymore.

Cooper You're the Michael Winslow of this podcast.

Amelia Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.

Cooper I'm the.

Amelia Man. Oh, sorry. An airplane just went overhead.

Speaker 3 Oh my God.

Amelia Nope. Listeners, that was me. Amelia.

Cooper That was. I was fooled, and I was watching your mouth the whole time. You're a

regular Jeff Dunham. Minus the puppets.

Amelia He's got he's got, like, a a brown man, right? Like a middle eastern.

Cooper Yeah, well, I think he's a skeleton. He's like a al Qaeda skeleton, man. Oh. Pretty sure.

Amelia Oh.

Cooper I gotta check the recesses of my brain from when I went to that Jeff Dunham concert

last week.

Amelia Or his his brother who stole his bit, and now he's suing his brother for impersonating

him. Jeff Dunham too.

Cooper Did Gallagher, like, put an end to his. You know what? I'm not gonna do that bit

anymore. And they were like, well, we really want it, so we'll take whatever we can get. We'll

take, I don't know.

Amelia A feeling that Gallagher never said. I'm throwing this material away and I'm making

fresh stuff.

Cooper I'm. I'm having a go at writing a new tight fifteen. That a loose forty of smashing

ketchup bottles.

Amelia That's his new thing. That's better.

Cooper I have not seen Gallagher live, but I have seen one of his specials, and he goes

through smashing a little bit of everything, but like it comes at the end of the special, you do

have to sit through his best effort at telling jokes, and it's kind of like, come on, get to it. Somaybe Gallagher too was just like, Skip, skip all that stuff. Just skip straight to the smashing.

Amelia He was better, but I think the audience would probably be like, this doesn't seem right.

This is not. This isn't Gallagher. I don't think like, they're just squinting.

Cooper Whenever they do those interviews. Like just outside the theater. Like.

Amelia Yeah, it was good.

Cooper But it was kind of weird that it wasn't Gallagher.

Amelia Yeah. Extended for four more weeks by popular demand. Yeah. I didn't know

Gallagher looked and sounded like that. Uh, did we say the name of this show? Yeah. We did.

This is Jackie. Magic.

Cooper Yes, Jack. Magic. This is episode five, week four of the Bracket. Um, last week was

wild, to say the least.

Amelia Uh, we were rocked here at, uh, Jack's Magic Studios. We had ourselves a tie. So, last

episode, Sheryl Crow. If it makes you happy. Looked like it was going to go on to the next

round. Okay. And then we got voicemails and we got two votes for Beastie Boys Fight for Your

Right to Party, which brought the count up to a tie. Fifty fifty. So we did not prepare for that. We

we have no tie breaking method. We we have to figure that out someday soon. Yes, we we

are. We are conferring with people. It was a very Bush v Gore situation. The Beastie Boys

conceded, and then they rescinded the concession. And Cheryl was like, you can't do that. But

ultimately we're still yeah, we're it's a recount. Well, it's not a recount. We're gonna figure out a

new vote or something, but. Right. I don't know. Life goes on.

Cooper Can't let the train come to a halt because of that. We have to keep it moving.

Amelia So true, so true.

Cooper And we're doing so this week with our fourth matchup which is loser by Beck versus.

Amelia Uh, creep by Radiohead. I think those two songs I feel like they're soul mates or

something. They're like like long lost twins or something who, like married a woman by the

same name and lived ten minutes away from each other their whole life.

Cooper I've seen this Dateline episode.

Amelia I feel like it's made up, but maybe not.

Cooper Yeah, I think a lot of that has to do with the time period that they emerge. Um, this is

like the defining moment of Slackerdom and Gen X. Gen X is no longer buying the the boomer

bullshit. Um, they see through the thinly veiled American dream and in turn they are called

slackers. But slackerdom is not really about laziness, it's just about not conforming. And funny

that these two songs, Loser and Creep like name wise, they like, fit that so perfectly into that

time period.Amelia Yes, Gen X was disaffected. Everything was met with irony or like they did participate,

but they were grumpy about it. They were right. They thought it was stupid the way that, like,

millennials, hate capitalism. I feel like Gen X hated consumerism or commercial ism. Like they

were starting to doubt institutions. We just want to throw out institutions. But they were like,

um, I read a Naomi Klein book, I can't remember, but like, they they would be the ones

complaining about, you know, Christmas music in a store too early. So they were like, just

against these displays of, I don't know, trying to fake being happy or fake being functioning. I

don't know, but like, they weren't ready to put on a suit.

Cooper Yeah. Those things were kind of viewed as you were giving up your personality, your

independence, if you just conform to many of them were still stuck in that, but they were trying

to rebel against it. And yeah, just packed with irony.

Amelia I think I think people have said a lot about Gen X, about the nineties, about grunge,

about slacker generation. If you want a better perspective. I don't know, maybe Ken Burns has

a documentary. Um.

Cooper I'd love to see it. Ken Burns slacker Gen-X documentary. I know, that'd be good. So,

uh, pans of.

Amelia A puck from the real world?

Cooper Yeah, without a doubt. Artists like Beck and Radiohead. Like. Like you were saying,

with these two songs, they do feel like they're two parts of the same thing, except for the fact

that they are taking different angles at the same thing. Whereas I think loser is kind of

deflecting. Loser is not looking as failure, as a fault or a wound. It's it's kind of saying it's a

shrug, it's just deflecting. It's not taking itself seriously. Whereas creep really is earnestly

saying.

Amelia Yeah, it's self-loathing. It's personal, it's internal.

Cooper Beck's loser is almost like it's saying nothing matters enough to hurt me. Um, whereas

like Radiohead's kind of saying, like, I feel everything and I hate that. I do like those are the like

Gen X, y like the two sides of the same coin.

Amelia I did a ton of research on Radiohead and Creep, and it's it's an insane story and I can't

wait.

Cooper I can't wait because.

Amelia For you to learn about it.

Cooper Yeah, I can't wait because I, you know, I still like the Beastie Boys of of the artists on

our bracket so far, they're the only ones that I would say that I have really liked until this week,

because I think, genuinely, I like both of these bands, I like back, I like Radiohead, I think that

I'm the least familiar with these two albums. I know you're going to go into a lot about

Radiohead, but definitely this period. Radiohead is. They're not themselves. They're they're

trying to be a rock band. They just seem much more a traditional, straightforward rock band.Whereas Beck very much comes out of the oven fully cooked. This is who Beck is. This

defines like what Beck is trying to do, and it continues the trajectory of Beck's career, I feel like.

Um.

Amelia Uh, I read a Beck interview, which, as nonsensical as his lyrics are, he knows exactly

what he means. And like in interviews, he's incredibly articulate about his work.

Cooper He, um.

Amelia And I believe he said, like, once he made his way into to the studio. Yes, it was a little

improvised, but he said, I have been preparing for this.

Cooper He says, like something like, you don't make this in six hours if you don't have the

bones of it correct in your mind. Yes. Well, yeah. Do we want to just jump into the songs?

Amelia Yeah. You start with. Well, since it's loser versus creep, start with start with loser.

Cooper Um, okay, so Beck grows up. He's the son of David Campbell, who's a composer

conductor, and his mother is Bibi Hansen. Who is who is Andy Warhol's protege? She's part of

that art scene. His grandfather, Al Hansen, was a part of the Fluxus art movement, which is all

about breaking down high art really fits into what Beck will become. Oh, I forgot to mention he

grew up in Los Angeles, but then moved to New York and he's basically homeless. He

becomes part of the anti-folk movement there. He's doing folk music, but he's doing it again,

dripping with irony, because the people who are making folk at this period in time, they're not

making it to be like they were. People are commercializing this thing that used to kind of be

counterculture. And so the anti-folk movement very much is pushing it even further.

Counterculture. Mhm. Um, which is, you know, and he's, he's part of this, he eventually has to

come back to Los Angeles because he's basically going to be homeless. Mhm. Um, he's taking

small jobs at clubs doing whatever he can just to get some stage time just to play. And he

starts recording a collection of songs. So as he's playing these small shows he notices that the

audiences are just getting bored. So he starts like joking around, playing spontaneous things,

adding funny lyrics just to like, get their attention, get them to watch. And you know, people

start loving it. People start seeking him out because of it. This gets him a deal with Bong Load

Records, which they are putting together a collection of singles at this time.

Amelia Wait, like a compilation of more artists or just him?

Cooper Just him. But he's putting out just just singles. It's very avant garde, weird. It's

everything that you love about Beck. And Beck really wants to make a rap song. And Carl Carl

Stephenson is like the rap producer at this small offset of I'll have to look it up.

Amelia Um, well, I can, I can say that Carl Stephenson, he did, he did attach a bunch of

balloons to his house and it like, floated away to South America.

Cooper Carl Fredricksen did that.

Amelia Sorry.Cooper You gotta you gotta update your wiki. I think your wiki research.

Amelia My own wiki. Oh, okay. So my memory.

Cooper Mistook Carl Stephenson for Carl Fredricksen.

Amelia Um, okay. So Carl Stephenson is a rap producer.

Cooper He's a rap producer, and he's impressed with Beck's playing, but he's not so much

impressed with Beck's rapping, really was trying to emulate, like, Chuck D from Public Enemy

with his rapping style. When Beck was listening to the playback, he was like, ah, I'm such a

bad rapper. I'm such a loser.

Speaker 4 Oh, God, Beck, why are you such a loser?

Cooper And made the chorus that just because he didn't know what else to do, so he just

says, soy un parado because he didn't know what else to say.

Amelia Does that mean anything?

Cooper It means I'm a loser.

Amelia Oh, okay. My Spanish is a little rusty because, I mean, because I never learned. I

never learned Spanish.

Cooper That's the rustiest kind.

Amelia It's rust. Yeah, yeah, it's been just sitting there unused. I just walk past it and. Yeah. So

it's rusty. My.

Cooper Yeah, I like, um, a lot of karaoke bars for loser. It just says so. Open the door.

Amelia I kind of always think that or dosey Doe.

Cooper Open the door. Oh, dosey doe would be good.

Amelia Little Dosey doe.

Cooper Yeah. Beck's taking it like I said. Kind of. It's not a failure. It's a shrug. It's. I'm a loser.

Like, this is what it is. And you can't hurt me. If I say that I'm a loser, then you can't hurt me. It's

almost that. So, you know, thinking about the household that Beck must have. And I should

say that Beck parents got divorced when he was, like, ten. He lives. He lives with his mom. So

he primarily is growing up with her. And she's a little bit more of that avant garde culture than

her dad. But it's interesting that he grows up around, you know, I don't know how much time he

spent with his dad when he was younger. And I know as his career went on, he went on to

work with his dad a lot.

Amelia But he arranged the strings for SeaChange.

Cooper He he grows up around serious music and then breaks through with sounds that areintentionally unserious. They're funny. They're they're genre mashing, like you said, even

though the lyrics are nonsensical, he can explain them. But like at the end of the day, they

really are nonsensical.

Speaker 5 Purple turtles aren't antidepressants, nicotine? Backyard. Adolescence?

Cooper I'm pretty sure that that's a Beck lyric. I made up purple turtle in my head.

Amelia Yeah.

Cooper Kind of like my Eminem rap.

Amelia I will never forget your Eminem. Why don't you do it now?

Cooper And Stephen Hawking, I.

Speaker 6 Don't see you walking. What was that? You or the computer talking? And Michael

Jackson, your face is made out of plastic and your dick's elastic. I heard that from the last kid

you asked. Prick.

Amelia Okay, well. All right. I don't weigh in on Michael Jackson's past or his proclivities, but,

um, you you you seem to have taken a side.

Cooper I've taken. Well, no, em's taken a side. Okay, you know me.

Amelia Sweetie, I know. He's. He's one of your faves, sweetie.

Cooper Michael. I'm team sweetie. Michael.

Amelia Yeah, he was pro-Palestinian.

Cooper Uh, showing up in those, uh, files recently.

Speaker 7 No. Uh.

Amelia What?

Cooper Yeah. He's like, I don't think this. I don't think this island is for me.

Amelia I could have stayed home.

Cooper I should have specified boys.

Amelia I do know that, like Corey Feldman and Macaulay Culkin have come out publicly and

said, like, he never tried anything with me. But, yeah, you guys are famous. He's not an idiot.

Yeah, he's doing it. Why?

Cooper You just decide to just become him for the rest of your life?

Amelia Why is your brief friendship? Why did it have such an impact? I feel like if you had

been great friends with MC hammer, you would be less MC hammer like today, right? I think hemight be leaning into something for the popularity. Um, protip practical magic tip. Don't try to

molest the famous kids.

Cooper That's a great tip. Keep that one in your back pocket.

Amelia Yeah, that's just a legend. If you're gonna, guys, if you're gonna molest kids, don't do

the famous ones.

Speaker 8 Do the famous.

Cooper Ones.

Amelia It's Tom Hanks. It's not the car.

Speaker 9 Oh, not the famous ones.

Amelia Not the famous ones.

Speaker 8 Where were we talking about? Oh, yeah. Beck.

Cooper Um, it's kind of another thing that I'm noticing. And it could eventually become a Jack

doctrine submission. A lot of these songs that are on the bracket, the artists themselves don't

particularly like, they think that they're going to hurt their career. They don't necessarily want it

to be on the album.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Cooper Or it's added to the album after the fact, and then it becomes the thing that, like,

completely blows them into the stratosphere.

Amelia That's that should absolutely be a Jack doctrine, because I do believe, like eighty

percent of our songs so far has been like the record company didn't hear a single, like they

needed a single or.

Speaker 3 Like.

Amelia We just we just shit that out in twenty minutes. Like it's not a flex. Like, that's not like

you guys are acting okay. You don't like the great single that you put out, but you're what you're

defending the the other eleven songs that we kind of skip like, right?

Cooper Yeah.

Amelia Okay. Those songs, you got their back, but you don't like the the one that everyone

loves.

Cooper Yeah, it's it's interesting. And that's the case with loser here. Uh, Beck makes it. That

kind of makes this mediocre. He kind of thinks it's going to hurt his career. He doesn't really

agree with releasing it, but Rothrock insists it goes on to get a lot of college radio play. The

album is built around loser as the first single. All the other songs are going to be added, so

Rothrock brings the record to Geffen and that ignites a fierce bidding war, which gives backkind of some leverage. He ends up signing a non-exclusive contract with Geffen, which

allowed him to release some of his unproduced songs or unreleased songs as a sprawling

twenty five track compilation of songs that he recorded and that records titled Stereopathetic

Soulmanure and that comes out the following year. And that predates Mellow Gold. But then

Mellow Gold comes out.

Amelia Did One Foot in the grave came out around the same time as Stereopathetic

Soulmanure, right?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Cooper I did not spend much time with within the grave. Um, but similar thing um, collection of

older songs. But Geffen releases Mellow Gold by the time that Geffen releases Mellow Gold,

loser is already in the top forty. It peaked at number ten on the Billboard's Hot one hundred.

Amelia Very respectable.

Speaker 3 Um.

Cooper And this new attention gives back kind of the moniker The King of the Slackers. Critics

are noting it as the follow up to creep. Already tying these two songs together back does not

really agree with this being the spokesperson for the slacker generation. Um, because he

definitely was not a slacker. He was doing anything but like, he was literally working so hard to

get his stuff out. Um, it's just that, you know, so he, he very much denounces that king of

slacker moniker that they gave him.

Amelia Does he? He was never one that refused to play loser. I've heard.

Speaker 3 Him.

Amelia Play loser. Yeah. No.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Cooper He's never he's he's never turned away from loser. He you know I think he recognizes

that it launched his career and I think he appreciates it. Yeah I saw him last summer. He played

it I think he probably closed with it.

Amelia Um didn't he do um everybody's in LA like the last episode with John Mulaney? It was

the.

Cooper Yeah, I think he did.

Amelia I think he was the last musical guest. And it was loser.

Cooper Yeah.

Amelia Really great.

Cooper Spin magazine puts it top twenty singles of the year. Quote was novelty pop asnothing since you gotta fight for your right to party.

Amelia How about that? So another. So maybe, like maybe not twin flame. Yeah. Triplets

separated at birth.

Cooper Bec. You know, this goes on. He goes on to have a wonderful career.

Amelia Say that again.

Cooper When losers recorded, Bec was actually living in a rat infested shed, which is

amazing. Yeah, it's almost worse than homeless. Yeah, like, just be homeless at that point.

Like rat infested. Come on, man.

Amelia I can't get these rats out of this four by four structure.

Cooper Listening to Mellow Gold again for this, I knew a lot more of the songs than I thought I

would. I really have not spent a lot of time with Mellow Gold, which I, you know, I would put

back top five favorite artists. I think I kind of have that negative mindset about loser, just

because it seems like the thing that everyone would talk about, like the Jack FM thing. So in

my mind I'm like, I don't really count that or something, but listening to it, it's awesome. I mean,

for that to be the first song of Beck is pretty insane.

Amelia Uh p I don't think people took him seriously for that whole album when he was in the

conversation. They didn't ask him. It was more like how it reflected on current music. I mean, it

was like a year or so after alternative was. And so it was kind of the bringing up the rear of.

Yeah, he was just kind of a late artist of that like group. Everyone put their own thoughts on

that song and it stuck. Yeah.

Cooper And I think that that's kind of what he retrospectively has not railed against that song,

but certainly has a viewpoint that people didn't understand. It probably misconstrued that Beck

was this lazy, nonsensical person who was white boy, who was doing fake raps and doing

them badly. And it was weird and over slinky guitar music, and you can see where there would

be some disconnect and where people would be like, what is this? But you can also see where

that's an entry point for the Gen X, the the generations who are, you know, in us, the

millennials, like I grew up for me, like Pete and Pete was a very defining moment in my

upbringing as something that like, opened my eyes to to like what the world could be. And

Beck is very much was that for me musically because it was just like, what? What am I? What

am I hearing? I've never heard anything like this. And it's funny and it's weird and it's clearly

meant to be funny and weird. Not in the way that, uh, Weird Al is like was kind of my entry

point to most things, which, by the way, I have a story at the time of loser being released.

Weird al approached Beck to make Schmoozer Schmoozer.

Amelia Schmoozer.

Cooper Um Schmoozer, and Beck was worried because of these things that we're talking

about. He didn't want to be a one hit wonder. He was also, you know, already kind of on the

cusp of not being taken seriously of it being parody. So he he declined. He said he didn't wantWeird Al to do it, and then ever since has regretted it because, yeah, there's no higher honor.

Yeah.

Amelia Okay. I don't think Schmoozer would have been weird. Al's best ones.

Cooper I I'm a schmoozer baby, so why don't you?

Amelia Yeah, I. I'm thinking of.

Cooper Anyway, maybe we're just, like, as soon as the song comes out and he sends a

blanket email out to every artist and says, Will you let me do the song?

Amelia Uh, he absolutely does. You know, he has. And he's always had a band. He doesn't

use the original tracks of the the original artists. He recreates it.

Cooper I know his band is amazing.

Amelia Yeah, that's really good.

Cooper And, uh, even though Beck declined, um, Weird Al did eventually get permission to

use a segment of loser in one of his polkas entitled The Alternative Polka, which is fantastic.

Amelia I remember that, okay. Yeah. Where it was like a medley. Yes.

Cooper And one more thing. When loser came out, Beck was approached by the music

supervisor for the movie Dumb and Dumber to use it on the soundtrack, and he refused

because he thought it was a little too on the nose, with them not understanding the point of the

song, or they just they were just like, hey, it's a loser and these guys are losers, so we should

use that.

Amelia That doesn't feel right. Dumb and dumber has a good has a good soundtrack. Like

whoever the music supervisor was for all the Farrelly brothers movies.

Cooper Oh. They're fantastic.

Amelia Pretty good. That's the first time we heard Phoenix. Too young.

Cooper Was that in Shallow Hal?

Amelia Yeah.

Cooper I thought it was lost in translation.

Amelia Shallow Hal came out maybe three years before, and it had two young.

Cooper Lots of translation. I say what, I say, what.

Amelia I say, what I say what. Lost in translation. Ladies and gentlemen, I had to have an

obsessive compulsive disorder with songs and weird sayings that I would.

Cooper You still do. But you used to, too.Amelia Yeah, I forgot about Lost in Translation. I had one about Rancho Cucamonga is like a

sting, like a late sting song. Oh, the Rancho Cucamonga. It's the Rancho Cucamonga. Oh, the

Rancho Cucamonga. It's the Rancho Cucamonga.

Cooper They need Rancho Cucamonga. Tourism Bureau needs to get on.

Amelia Yeah, because no one's going out. Yeah, no one's going out that far. Uh, unless.

Unless you got that tribal song.

Cooper Um, no. You had you had some real, real hits on your, uh.

Amelia Thank.

Cooper You. iMac, GarageBand. And they were. They were, uh, only only for your ears. And

once I found them, um, one of the all time best was up with your box. What's up with your box?

Can I get up in it? Call you on the phone now. What's up with it? Cause I can't get my mind o

off your box.

Amelia Yeah. That's it.

Cooper Timberlake. Oh.

Amelia Yeah, it was. Cause I can't keep my mind off your box. Ho! Off your backs. Yeah.

Cooper Then you had this weird spoon, uh, spoon esque, um. Hocus pocus poking away.

Amelia Oh, cause you fried. I did that all, all vocal loop. Yeah. Oh, God.

Cooper Oh.

Amelia God. You guys were just saints. I'm sorry.

Cooper No, it's the best.

Amelia It was the best.

Cooper This song, you know, this song lasts the test of time. Rolling Stone listed it as one of

the top five hundred songs of all time. Pitchfork, uh, put it at number nine on their top two

hundred songs of the nineties.

Speaker 7 Okay!

Cooper Paste magazine ranked it number one on their greatest Beck song. Oof! And in twenty

twenty, The Guardian ranked the song number three on their thirty Greatest Beck Songs.

Amelia Okay, well one. I gotta see these articles. Two I loser wouldn't be. It might not even be

in my top twenty or thirty.

Cooper Yeah, I have a hard time with it being up.

Amelia Not that it's bad, it's just there's so many incredible back songs.Cooper Yeah. So I mean. Oh, another couple more small fun facts. Uh, his mom, Bibi Hansen,

was a part time. So, uh, what is it called when you deliver a baby midwife?

Amelia Um. Uh, doula.

Cooper And she delivered the Ribisi twins.

Amelia Hoo hoo!

Cooper Beck would go on to marry. Not both of them. Maybe. No.

Amelia It was the redhead one from.

Cooper Mehrabani d Mehrabani. Ribisi.

Amelia She had a little like she. She was in a couple shots of Dazed and Confused. I think she

has, like, super tight red hair. Yes.

Cooper Marissa Ribisi.

Amelia Um hum. Was Beck's mom a Scientologist? I think he grew up Scientologist.

Cooper He's gone back and forth on his level of Scientology. I think his dad was Scientologist

and he considers himself just to be Jewish. Um, his mom, I believe Jewish. Yeah. Hanson.

Speaker 7 What?

Amelia Hanson.

Cooper Hanson.

Amelia Sound okay? Is Jim Henson Jewish?

Cooper No, I don't think so. The rabbis were Scientologists, so I would imagine that that whole

midwife section is definitely part of the Scientology. Um, I don't want to I don't want the church

to come after us. But, um, never really talked about his time with Scientology until like two

thousand and five, which I think.

Amelia Yeah, yeah.

Cooper Right around the time of the information is out of the information. So.

Amelia And since then, real quick, real quick. What about the band, Hanson? Do you think

they're Jewish?

Cooper Oh.

Amelia I mean.

Speaker 8 They don't look it.

Amelia What is that supposed to mean? Also. Okay. So. Campbell. Okay, I know Judaism getspassed down from the mom.

Cooper Huh?

Amelia Her name's Hanson. Dad's name is Campbell.

Speaker 8 Right.

Amelia I guess by by blood or by, however they track Jewishness. Probably not by blood. That

sounds problematic. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe it was her side. But, I mean, I.

Cooper Would assume it is because he, you know, he lived with her. He very much sounds

like he like, took on her interests and goals and everything. So it sounds like some of that

division might have been, I don't know that they got divorced because of Scientology. I'm not.

Don't put that in my mouth.

Amelia Okay.

Cooper But anyway, what.

Speaker 10 Do you.

Amelia Think about the song loser? Like, how do you feel about it? I like it, I.

Cooper Um, I think it's fun. I think it's it's stuck in my head as an important checkpoint to where

culture and music and everything was in my life. Like I could never turn back once I got there.

It's not my favorite Beck song by a long shot. It is very much what? Beck. It's all there. It's all

there. You see, everything that's about to come with Beck is in loser. I can't, uh, can't fault it for

that.

Amelia Can I just give a, like, a, like a two minute? A personal history me with back.

Cooper Yeah, absolutely.

Amelia So, yeah, I think we mentioned like, spin. I kind of feel like spin magazine, rolling

Stone, Entertainment Weekly, MTV, like animation, especially HBO, eBay. And then I had an

indie movie theater called High Point Theater, about a ten minute walk from where I grew up.

And I got to see, like, these movies that Entertainment Weekly would give, like A's and a

pluses to. And they were like real grown up. But if I didn't have those influences, you guys like

you wouldn't have met me. Honestly, I don't think. I mean it did. It made me push a creativity

that was not the popular one. You realize you didn't have to do that way. Like there was. So

like I did, like when loser came out, I thought it was a fine song. The video was really funny. I

just thought there was something funny about girls doing, like, a dance, like in their school

soccer uniforms and. And then like, the stop motion coffin for, for like, a couple seconds is

funny. Didn't make me buy Mellow Gold by any means. Then where it's At came out a couple

years later and I thought that song was great. Video was hilarious. I definitely bought Odelay

as soon as I could. Um, easily. The I think at that point was the best album I ever bought in my

life. Devil's haircut like it had a ton of great singles New Pollution, jackass, fantastic album andthen the things in between are awesome, so smart and great. And I know we think of him as

kitchen sink like wild crazy, but everything that's placed and I'm sure the Dust Brothers are to

credit. But any dumb sound or any little tiny sound is so perfect at that time that it needs to be

so. I loved, I loved Odelay, I got mutations, I thought because Beck had a song, deadweight, I

thought deadweight was going to be on mutations. It wasn't. It was from a life less ordinary. I

didn't want to say romantic comedy because I don't know, it's I don't think I think it's got laughs

or the two leads are very into each other. It might have been directed by Danny Boyle, right?

Cooper Yeah.

Amelia It is. Okay. Yeah, I thought I thought mutations was just as good as Odelay. Maybe a

little better. And like, at that time, I was thinking that Beck might be my favorite artist. Then

came just the greatest thing ever made. Midnite vultures just, uh. I think it's maybe just my

favorite thing. Um, blew me away. Like sex laws might be. I mean, it's still maybe my favorite

song. There's no reason for it. Um, it's not even like it's not as fast. It's not. It's not other artists

that I love. It's not there. But, like, it's not the best. It's just my favorite. Like, just as you were.

Just as you were mentioning Pete and Pete. I liked Jack black from I Saw the tenacious D

short like one time in the middle of the night on HBO. I had no idea what it was, and I and I

couldn't find it forever, and I like I really a magazine. I had had an article about it, so I only

knew that. And then in the article it mentioned, like John C Reilly played, uh, Sasquatch. Uh,

and I thought, oh, that's cool. John C Reilly's a part of it. I loved Boogie Nights at the time, so I

see Jack Black and Saxx laws and I'm like, okay, this is this is my this is my world. Like, I'm

gonna hang out in this world. eBay, thank God. Like led me to the bootleg of Heat Vision and

Jack and the tenacious D like it was just like this whole little world. Wes Anderson, Paul

Thomas Anderson back like that little Ben Stiller, the Wilson brothers. Yeah, like. But anyway,

love sex laws, Midnite Vultures rules. I was a minor. The sex or the Midnite Vultures tour was

so fun. I'm so glad that he came. Came to town like a month or two after playing Midnite

Vultures. Every minute of every day I went back and got on eBay like Mellow Gold, One Foot in

the grave and Stereopathetic Soulmanure. I listened to them like two or three times. It's just.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Amelia It's ones folk ones kind of junk. Mellow gold is definitely the more accessible one.

Speaker 7 Yeah, but like, for sure.

Amelia Like those things were okay because those were early and I knew he was on an

upward trajectory. And then let's see, sea change came out in like twenty twenty two. Uh, it

was incredible. But it was tied to like, a breakup. So me and Beck were just on the same page

there.

Cooper And I want to say about sea change is, well, and, you know, this entire catalog that

you're listing, I know you're you're there like there's an evolution, but it's still going off of that

initial bone structure. You know, by the time you get to see change, he's he's leaning more into

what traditional folk would be, but it's still with a backspin. It still has the sounds that are in the

background. It's still built on the framework. And the language that he's told us is back. And,you know, I think mutations for me was is my back album. Like that's the album for me for sure.

I love I love Midnite Vultures so much.

Speaker 7 I know.

Cooper But but mutations was him saying, here I am a folk artist, but I can still be a folk artist

and be this weirdo. But like, there's so much more Our musicality to mutations. It's well, it's well

composed. It's there is clearly an actual songwriter. It's not. It's not just the putting stuff

together and making something with that. Odelay is. And Odelay is incredible, but it is

definitely feels chaotic because it's made. It's designed to feel that way. Mutations feels like a

step back, taking a break, letting things breathe a little bit more. And then you get into Midnite

Vultures and it's just a party.

Speaker 7 Yeah, like like.

Amelia Mutations, which I see on your back shelf on vinyl. It was like, here I can write songs

too, I can. Was that a was that produced by Nigel Godrich or something? I really got to learn

more about producers. Yes, mutations was like, I can write songs, they can be great songs,

which everyone on there is so good. And then I always felt like, yeah, the drops, the sound

drops like that. That donkey noise during lonesome no, not lonesome tears. But anyway, um,

there's like a donkey noise. There's like a power tools. Like it seemed in studio. More than not

that they got a donkey in studio, but it was more like, let's, let's build that stuff to like, being a

Beck fan is really exhausting in a way. Sometimes I feel like I'm a ghost when I talk about back.

Uh, like Sea Change didn't have any singles, or he didn't release anything for radio because

he wanted it to be an album on its own. Um, I think Lost Cause had a video, but it was never

broadcast. It was like I first saw it, and maybe the only time I saw it was at a TV store, like it

was playing on the screens. But, um, yeah, I feel like a ghost because I'm talking about back

and people know loser and they're like, oh yeah, I know. Yeah. The guy who did loser okay.

And I'm like, well, he's had you know, he's had like four or five way better albums and like and

then you try to describe them but it's impossible. And they just kind of tune out like it's so hard

to which might may be why like Beck has never. No, I think Beck got as big as he could and it's

great. Beck albums need to be heard more than once, and they need to be. I couldn't throw it

on on, like, make them listen to it for forty five seconds. It just wasn't gonna work. Um, I think

wero is so underrated and incredible. I listened during the last three weeks and it's it's

wonderful. It got it got discounted due to like now he's doing Latino kind of Hispanic stuff, but

like it was about East LA and.

Cooper Right. And he grew up in a predominantly Spanish neighborhood.

Amelia If like, uh, what's his name? Lin-Manuel Miranda put out the same album, people

would be like, this is oof, this guy can do anything. The information, his album, the information

didn't super do it for me. Instead of Beck going somewhere else, it was like back doing back. It

was just back. Yeah, I feel like it was baseline back without any adventure sense of adventure.

But also, I probably felt that way because people spent the last, I don't know, decade, fifteen

years just ripping him off like there was a generation of I feel like so many people, I can't think

of any. But you could hear his influence and. Right. And then so I guess Hearing an actualback album was a little less exciting or something. So the information I just, I really didn't love

it. Same with what is it, Modern Guilt?

Cooper Yeah.

Amelia I think this one was more live band and that was okay.

Cooper Yeah, you and I might have some departures here because I. I really like both of these

albums. I think that Modern Guilt is a perfect album. Like, I think it's, I think it's the culmination

of what Beck is in, in every sense. Like, it's so well produced and so raw, and it's just

straightforward. Beck, um, for me, and I totally know what you mean about the information. I

remember definitely when I got it, it felt kind of overwhelming. There was a lot there was too

much going on, and it took a lot of listens for me to kind of come around to it. That one was

him. And, uh, Nigel Godrich again, because Nigel wanted to do more of a Beck album, not just.

Amelia Yeah, like let me do. Yeah, let me do one of yours. Yeah.

Cooper And, you know, I think that there's also this I think that this is around the time that we

know the culture knows that Beck is a Scientologist or at least had some Scientology running

through his upbringing. And I kind of think that that put a stink on the information. I think that

people thought of the information for me personally, especially that last, uh, like long, uh,

collage track. It felt very much like it was about Scientology. It was like sending a message of

Scientology. And I think that back then did a lot of work to say like, no, no, no, no, like, it's not

I'm not that. I just I had that when I was a child. I was a part of that, but I'm not a part of that.

But then. Yeah. So then Modern Guilt with Danger Mouse and then of course, Morning Phase.

Amelia Yeah. I think by that time most commercial album, I honestly I may have listened to it

uh, two, three times max. Same with like the ones after like dreams or colors. And I want.

Cooper To say about that, it's funny because you talked about being tired as a Beck fan, and a

lot of people who I like really respect musically, uh, they, they knew of Beck, they knew that he

what he was doing, but they probably had that same idea of, oh, yeah, that's the loser guy.

He's the weird collage artist. Um, then Morning Phase comes out and it's, you know, he wins

best album of the year. It's the biggest commercial success of his career. And I have those

people coming to me now and saying like, oh, Beck is Beck is talented, and it's one of those

where it's like vindicated. Like, yeah, I know.

Amelia Yeah.

Cooper Fuck you. This isn't even this isn't even what I like. This is this is good. But this isn't

what I like.

Amelia And I'm gonna close the.

Cooper Window with that. With all that success. As so often is the case, it's hard to keep your

spark. And I think that colors and hyperspace. For me personally, they're my least favorite

albums. They to me feel like Beck doing back. They feel more like he's trying to be trying to go

back to whatever that old thing was. But now it's like super polished and way too shiny andclean with his career, looking at it from mellow gold until morning phase. It feels maturing. Um,

there's a maturity with every album, even when he goes back to do the rap stuff and, you

know, with with Jero, who made those great. Um. What's happening?

Amelia There's a trash truck like, ten feet from me, by the way. So many weird things in this

office.

Cooper Yeah. That's great.

Amelia I mean, it's really great. Great armature. It's like a it's like a hornet or a wasp. It's kind

of awesome. Yeah, it's super cool. Travis.

Cooper Before the trash, every album has the pieces that make back. And I don't fault him for

growing up. I think that once you get to morning phase, once you get to morning phase, it's just

it's a mature record. I'm okay with it. Like it's okay that he's progressed. It's not it's not an

abandonment of who he is. He's just continuing that journey. Whereas to me, colors does feel

like that falling off a cliff, because now it feels like an old man trying to do a young man's game.

Amelia It's kind of a formula. Yeah.

Speaker 10 Mhm.

Cooper You know, this is around the time where he and Marissa divorced and it's kind of like,

hey, now I'm back to being the old me again. And like I'm gonna do it, but it's so shiny and so

polished and it just doesn't feel authentic to me. And you know, the Pharrell production on

hyperspace is really, really good. It feels like Beck is on a Pharrell record. Not. Not the other

way around. To me.

Amelia Like, I was fine with, like, the singles that have come out in the last ten years. They

didn't. They didn't make me love him. They just went. Now curving.

Speaker 8 Get the trash trucks. Thoughts? Get the trash trucks.

Cooper Thoughts on loser.

Speaker 8 Hey, loser.

Speaker 11 Hey, who are you calling a loser, punk? Oh, the song Loser by Beck. Oh, I love

that song. Hey, wait a minute. Is this the magic podcast?

Speaker 12 Long time listener.

Amelia Okay, so we both agree that Beck I mean like let him he's a bit of like after getting

divorced, a bit of a, a middle aged man coming to singles bars with dyed hair. Not that not that

fringe.

Cooper I'm not trying to age shame anybody, but yeah, like I saw Beck. And when you see a

close up of back, you're like, oh, you're older than you should be for this outfit and haircut. It's

okay. Like something, something about that big commercial success fall off is always roughwith bands like I remember Arcade Fire had that same thing where it just was like. It was like

drop off a cliff once, once that album of the year hit. But, you know, it's disappointing to me that

Beck, his number one song on iTunes, is loser. His number two is morning from Morning

Phase. Um, which is that's disappointing to me as as a lifelong Beck fan, because I know that

there's so much more. And I did note I did go back and check all of our artists and most of

them on our bracket so far. Their number one song is the song that we refer to, with the

exception of Goo Goo Dolls and Sheryl Crow.

Amelia Real quick, like, okay, so I made it clear that Sex Laws is my favorite. What's your

favorite song?

Speaker 8 Favorite Beck.

Cooper Song?

Speaker 8 Uh.

Cooper I would potentially go really have a favorite. I might say sex laws.

Speaker 10 Whoa.

Amelia Love it.

Cooper I don't I don't know if I can. I don't know if I can just straight up say that I think that I

have favorite Beck things that he does that all, like, feel coupled together. Like, it's hard for me

to say like, oh, that one song is great. I think about Debra all the time. I always want to sing. I

have sung Debra at karaoke. It's wonderful. Um, you know, I'm sad that Beck doesn't really

like, uh, Midnite Vultures.

Amelia Oh, I didn't know that.

Cooper For a while I think he felt like it was too below him. But then I saw him play with

Chicago Symphony Orchestra this past summer, and he played a ton of Midnite Vultures and a

ton of mutations, and I was a fan.

Amelia That's all I could ask for, honestly.

Speaker 8 So yeah.

Cooper I. So to wrap up for me, to me, Beck is more than loser, but I think that loser. Uh, you

know, has its merits in the world, as I appreciate that it gave us back.

Amelia I agree with that. I think one of the one of the edicts of the Jack doctrine, um, strong,

strong openings that that jangle, that the jangle that just keeps going throughout the whole like

it doesn't even change even the second verse. They just it just drops out. Like, I don't even

think it's in the second verse. I don't know why I think this feels jack-fm. Honestly, this is. This

is one that I can't explain. This is this is Jack magic right here that I cannot define. Um.

Cooper Well, I have I have a thought of my own. Um, but I kind of want to wait until we talkabout both songs.

Amelia Yeah, let's. Do you want to. Do you want me to start with, uh, my.

Cooper Let's, uh, let's go to soy un Paradiso, which does translate to I'm a pervert, not a

creep.

Amelia But forgive me. My Spanish. My Spanish is rusty. Forgive me. Um. Okay. Radiohead.

They're from England.

Cooper You don't say. Now, I thought these were Texas boys.

Amelia Okay, so. Yeah, they're from England. Thom Yorke, lead singer of Radiohead. Just a

shy, pale, sickly little runt of a boy. His dad was a his dad was a championship boxer. Um,

yeah. His dad, I imagine, like a Tom Hardy character when, like, Tom Hardy's just trying to be

unintelligible. Like just doing.

Speaker 5 With.

Amelia Just being so British that it may not be English. Um, but anyway, like he tried to put, he

tried to put some boxing gloves on Tom and probably, like, fell over from the weight or

something, I don't know. Sure. Um, Tom, this is going to be. Yeah. Me, um, saying a lot of

personal things about Tom York. Uh, he he had a paralyzed eye when he was a baby. He had

to have several eye surgeries throughout his childhood, which explains that look. It's also just

kind of a British look, honestly, like.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I would have just thought.

Cooper Oh, he just woke up British.

Amelia And I think the surgeon right before they put him under was probably like, when I'm

done with you. Nobody's gonna mistake you for any other country of origin. Don't you worry,

son. I got you. So anyway, they fucked up that surgery.

Cooper They fucked it.

Amelia Up. Well, he got, like, several surgeries. They fucked up the last one cause you'd

probably stop if they fucked up a eye surgery. So he. That left him a little droopy in the left eye,

partially blind. He had to wear an eye patch for the first few years of school, kids called him

salamander, which is perfect, I love that. But anyway, the members of Radiohead, like they all

went to the same prep school together. What?

Cooper What school did they go to?

Amelia Uh, hold on, I have it in my notes. Um, Academy of who gives a fuck? What are you

gonna do with that information, I don't know.

Cooper Uh.Amelia Oh, man. But who gives a shit? School for boys, I don't know. Uh, but it did have a

robust music program. Um.

Cooper Very good.

Amelia Okay, so the band you got, you got, you got old salamander, you got Colin

Greenwood. Two others, um, didn't write down their names. Little kid brother Jonny

Greenwood came aboard. They called their first band on a Friday because that was the day

they had music class and music rehearsal space. Like just little dorks really.

Cooper Asserting your alpha ness over Radiohead in this podcast.

Amelia I feel so tough. When you.

Cooper Finally found.

Amelia Radiohead.

Cooper You finally found your betas.

Amelia Yeah. Um, they were offered a record deal, like, pretty soon out of school. These dorks

turned it down because they wanted to go to university.

Cooper Uni, as they called it.

Amelia Well, yeah. Maybe isn't. Isn't their high school also called college or something? I don't

know.

Cooper And they are so fucked up over there.

Amelia My God, why.

Cooper They don't even know from from the day they are born. All they know about is we have

to drink tea once a day. And whatever else is just called the same fucking shit.

Amelia Yeah, yeah. Like we're the ones who speak your language. Why do we sound. Why do

we do it better than you? Like you guys call that a lift? We call it an elevator. That's four

syllables. You guys are so awful. You're so stupid. England.

Cooper You call it the loo? We call it the shitter. That's what you do in it. I don't go loo at it.

Amelia Like they're just. They're just ridiculous. Um, the two.

Cooper Fancy pants dorks.

Amelia Yeah. The tube. It's a subway. Like we couldn't get. We couldn't get Santa Claus. Well,

we got Father Christmas. I guess it's got it. Probably has something to do with the Church of

England. And, like, the Saints were Catholic. Okay, that that kind of makes sense. But anyway,

so they went separate ways. But old on a Friday would get together. Probably not Fridays, but

like bank holidays. Oh yeah. Also they call vacations. Holidays. What do you call that shit onthe calendar? Buttholes. anyway, they reunited as a full fledged band, and, like, right away

they were doing some good performances. I don't know where they're from. They're from, like.

Like one of the. They're up there. It's not like London. It's north. They were drawing some

crowds. They recorded a demo. Colin Greenwood. This is very smart. He worked at a record

store, but he would give away his demo to people who he thought were like, maybe industry,

maybe like tastemakers.

Cooper How do you think he was identifying the people he thought worked in the biz? Maybe

just good teeth. The teeth are nice.

Amelia Like within half a dozen shows. Multiple talent scout or not talent scouts. But multiple

A&R were coming to the show. They were just very desired. And like within ten live

performances, they got themselves a record contract. They signed to EMI Parlophone.

Cooper Heard of them?

Amelia They Got Taste renamed themselves Radiohead after a Talking Heads song, which I

think is risky because they don't like the talking Heads were still kind of together. But if they did

something terrible like a hit and run or something, or it's like naming yourself after an R Kelly

song But anyway, they made an LP that's like the short one, right?

Cooper No EP is the short one. LP is the one.

Amelia I thought EP was extended play.

Cooper That's for when you're, like, using a tape. Like when you're like when you're trying to

record all of must see TV that night.

Amelia Oh, you need to stretch it out. Yeah. You'll, you'll, you'll take, you'll take low quality.

Cooper But in the music industry and EP is the the shorter record LP.

Amelia LP is album. Okay. I'll have to think of a mnemonic device. Well, maybe cause no, the

LP, no, the EP, um, that didn't do great, but they were back to the studio making their first

album. Pablo, Honey. Now, listeners, I need you to hold on to something right now. If you're

driving, I need you to pull to the side of the road. Because what I'm about to tell you is insane.

Pablo Honey is named after a Jerky Boys call.

Speaker 13 Yeah. Pablo.

Amelia So you knew that?

Cooper No, I never knew that it was. But I know that now that you said. I know the Jerky Boys

call.

Amelia Okay. They loved. They loved the Jerky Boys. Yeah. That's insane. Jerky boys is the

opposite of Radiohead, right?

Cooper In every way.Amelia In every way. You could even categorize Johnny.

Speaker 5 But you put on a spot of tea. I got the Jerky Boys. They were gonna sit down and

listen.

Amelia Sure thing. Salamander. Okay, so Pablo Honey was produced by their managers and

by, like, the record company people.

Cooper Okay.

Amelia Which is weird. I don't think they do that often. But while it was recording, they were

loving all this hullabaloo about a little something called alternative music. They were smelling

the teen spirit, if you catch my drift. I am they needed, uh, sunglasses because they were

looking into Black Hole Sun. What are some other some other grunge songs?

Cooper Uh, Pearl jam, um.

Amelia That's a band. Um, but anyway, the record company, the manager they like shaped

Pablo Honey to be a little grunge, a little Britpop, which was starting to be a thing. You know,

you got your suede. Did they change their name to, like, London Suede? You got blur, you got.

Well, Oasis comes later. You got pulp like Britpop. It was a fucking thing. yeah. So it had, it had

grunge, it had Britpop and like, it felt like a little Radiohead, but also like the it's a really good

like it's a little quicker tempo and like every song kind of has like a DNA of other bands.

Cooper Yeah.

Amelia How do you is like an R.E.M. song?

Cooper It's so R.E.M..

Amelia It's really great. Um, anyone can play guitar. Sounds like a Weezer song. Even though

Pablo Honey came out before Weezer. And then I can't. Sounds a lot like Gin Blossoms. I don't

know when Gin Blossoms came out, but I'm gonna say after Radiohead.

Cooper Yeah.

Amelia I don't know, maybe Radiohead inspired Weezer, but. And I think you know where I'm

going with this. The album needed one more song. They just wanted to add one more. Um.

Salamander dusts off his notebooks and he wrote creep about this young lady he had a really

unhealthy obsession with in school. Some girl he'd see around Oxford.

Cooper So uni not primary Oxford.

Amelia Uni versity.

Cooper She was a bird.

Amelia I believe she was a fit bird. All right. So he was just writing a song about her. Not like I

will win her heart. I will emerge victorious. More like I suck. I'm nothing to this girl. We're notthe same species. Just a complete fucking sim. I imagine Tom, like, up in his bedroom, just

googling this girl. And meanwhile, like, his mom is downstairs, like Tommy, your favourite telly

is on.

Speaker 14 It's the the vicar of Scotland Yard. There won't be a new episode for like, two

years. When it.

Amelia Comes back, it'll feel weird. She's downstairs eating a packet of crisps. Tom's upstairs

just busting into, like, a picture of this girl sticking it on his wall. Like Philip Seymour Hoffman in

Happiness. I like how their living rooms have a door. you know, like an American living room.

It's like an open, an open floor plan. Yeah. They have like, a pocket door or like a sliding door

into their living room.

Cooper Yeah. That's true.

Amelia It's so odd. Jam butties. Just they're children. They're fucking. Just English cheese

toasties. Just.

Cooper Just living in an imaginary play world.

Amelia Just. They just like being cosy. They love a tea.

Cooper Oh, they love being cosy.

Amelia I love sitting in front of the telly with their. With their big sweaters.

Cooper I mean, look dog on them all you want. Give me a chunky sweater. A toasty strudel

and a.

Amelia It's cheese toastie, not toastie. Okay, so, Tom, Tom's upstairs.

Cooper Gunnin going.

Speaker 5 Into his bed.

Amelia About what a awful person he is and can never get this girl. So there in the studio, you

know, because they're recording. Pablo, honey. Okay, you've seen jackass the movie. I think

the first they, like, hide in the bushes and go to, like, a golf course and then blow the air horn

when people are in their back swing and it, like, messes up their their first hit, their tee. Um, so

this kind of reminds me of that. Like Tom wrote the song, everybody thought it was real cringe.

Real. Just terrible. Um, like too much, too much to be seen by the public. Like Johnny

Greenwood hated that fucking song. He hated it so much that he was actively sabotaging the

The recording, which is an insane thing to do when you're a kid with a record contract.

Cooper Like right when you're about to become famous.

Amelia Like you're going to sabotage your friend's song, he would Johnny would just ruin all

the takes. So he would he would wait until, like, the last line of the verse, kind of like the back

swing of the golf and you know, the listeners, their ears perked up they know the chorus iscoming and Johnny on the strings just smashes his fingers on the strings. And yeah, it just.

Cooper I didn't know that you were a professional, uh, music writer. Smashing fingers on the

strings. I didn't know you knew the terms.

Amelia How did he make? How did he make it for?

Cooper I'm sure he has a pick. So he's not just slapping the strings, but I don't know. I mean,

he's into some weird stuff.

Amelia I was picturing him just, like loose hand.

Cooper Maybe it's just a guitar. He's just throwing stuff at a guitar that's on the other side of

the room. So you're. You're telling me that those sounds, those iconic sounds are him fucking it

up, and instead they make it like.

Amelia It's it's the thing.

Cooper That the song.

Amelia It turns the song from goofing about a girl to, like, kind of a rock song. So the

producers love that because it's like that distorted crunch that Johnny makes and, um, they

love it because it's like grungy and yeah, song about Gunnin becomes a little bit of a rock

song.

Cooper Have you seen the clip, um, from only a couple years ago? Like they. So they

obviously don't like this song, but they never play it live. And there's a clip where the whole

band knows that they're gonna play it except for Johnny. And then when they start playing it,

the look on Johnny's face is so amazing. He's like, you motherfuckers. It looks like they could

break up right then and there.

Amelia That's amazing.

Cooper Playing their most famous song.

Amelia Named after Jerky Boys. Song. No. Pablo, honey. Named after a Jerky Boys prank

phone call comes out. It gets fine. Reviews. Creep is the single goes out to UK stations. They

play it a couple times, but like, pull it. It's a bummer. It's. It's not cozy. It's not cozy enough for

these guys. This isn't Nana's sweater. You know the album. And like, the press cycle after, like,

a couple weeks. Album's kind of. There's nothing else you can do. They toured. They like.

They just kept going in England. Like they weren't going to get rich or anything. But through a

really, really weird series of events, the creep single Makes its way into the hands of this guy in

Israel, Yoav Kutner. Don't know if I mean, that's not that's not Hansen. I don't know how to

pronounce that. Exactly.

Cooper Right.

Amelia Yoav. Kutner. Um, yeah. If I didn't if I didn't pronounce that right, you know, tough shit,

because he was a DJ for the Israeli Defense Forces. So he was an iof DJ. Um, which I'mpicturing, like Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam. But instead of the French and the

United States, like separating Vietnam, it was it was a it was an English colonial force of

oppression. So anyway, these Zionists, uh, sorry, Israel goes.

Cooper It was only a matter of time.

Amelia The good people.

Cooper Tactical magic has gone off the rails, folks. Hey.

Amelia Why have a podcast? This is our podcast.

Cooper Exactly. Yeah.

Amelia We're not gonna. Yeah. Like this is ours. We can.

Cooper We're gonna lose our.

Amelia We can mention a genocide of Palestinian people. Israel goes nuts over crepe for

some reason. Uh, the record company pulls Radiohead from the from UK tour. Sticks them in

Israel. Huge, huge concerts. Maybe, maybe the most talked about live music event in Israel up

until the Nova music festival. Um, you didn't like that one?

Cooper I'm just here for the ride.

Amelia Okay, so Israel, they love that song. Um, now a okay, now here's weird. An Israeli

import of the single creep somehow gets to a record store in San Francisco. I think Berkeley,

somebody who works at that store, was also an intern at San Francisco's alt rock station, San

Francisco. Loves the song. UK not cozy enough, San Francisco. Perfect. It spreads Pacific

Northwest, it spreads down Southern California. Just creep all over the world. And then, I don't

know, like, the last thing I know about creep, that that we have to give history. I talked more

about his I than Radiohead, the Hollies, the band, the Hollies from the sixties. Yeah. Uh, they

sued Radiohead for plagiarism. Oh, you know that the harmonic progression of creep, which is

very close to the Hollies song The Air I breathe. Yeah. If you listen to it, they've got a case. The

Hollies got a case.

Cooper Yeah, I not not about this song, but I also think the Beatles got a case for, uh, Karma

Police because it's just sexy. Sadie.

Amelia Yeah. Oh my God. They lost that. I, I imagine as they're walking out of court, Johnny

punches salamander in the stomach really hard. It's like that song wasn't even yours, you

prick.

Cooper Like you made me do that.

Amelia You made. Yeah, you. It's costing us money, and we have to fucking play it from now

on about you getting over a girl. Um. Jonny Greenwood is Thom Yorke's biggest bully. Nobody

in his life was a bigger bully. I don't know, that's all I got about creep. What else can I say?

Like. Like. Same with back. Back in Radiohead. It's. There's almost nothing to say. Like,everything has been said. I don't know. Yeah I can't.

Cooper I think that creep obviously goes on to have a life of its own. It's, you know, it's as you

sometimes put it, it's one of those songs that kind of belongs to the world like that. It's

obviously taken on way more than just being a song. Um, talk about karaoke song. There's.

You're gonna hear that in most of your adult bars across America.

Amelia Yeah. Yeah. You won't. Yeah. You'll only find that in adult bars. I guess I would rather

hear at a karaoke bar. I would rather hear loser.

Cooper Yeah. I'm not saying I would rather hear it. I. I myself have done it. Karaoke with my

cousin where I sang Tom waits, and he was Pavarotti, and that was kind of fun. We were Tom

Waits and Pavarotti singing creep. Wow. Got a real kick out of that.

Amelia Oh, I bet the audience found you guys not at all intolerable. Oh, that sounds like the

least obnoxious karaoke performance I've ever heard. Um.

Cooper People, people enjoyed it. We even got movie deals based on that.

Amelia Oh, I'm sorry then. Can't wait for that to come out. Uh, what's your opinion? Loser

versus creep?

Cooper It's hard. Um, because I think loser is, you know, in the ways that Jack-fm is genre

bending. Beck and loser are certainly genre bending. I think that. Beck, in his anti-folk

movement and this whole thing that he's doing, he's very much pushing a counterculture

against commercialization. But that in turn becomes profitable. It It becomes the thing that

people want. Um, kind of like in that same way that the Beastie Boys were making fun of the

frat boys while becoming the frat boys. I don't think Beck was becoming commercial, but the

idea of being anti-commercial very much so. A Gen-X mindset became commercial. Um, that

kind of launched bands like Beck and, you know, Radiohead off Pablo Honey takes a complete

one hundred eighty with their sound. You know, The Bends is. Still rock and roll, but definitely

more along the lines of what they're going to do for the rest of their career until they get to until

they get to the beeps and boops, I think that. Losers. The song that I like more losers in every

way. The song that I would want to hear again. However, I think that the earnestness taking

itself seriously for the wrong reasons. I think that that's the Jack FM quality that would force me

to vote for creep.

Amelia Okay, so your votes creep.

Cooper I voted creep this week and I had a hard time with it.

Amelia Okay, I have also just been lost. Just like I can't. There's nothing there's nothing

specific. Like they just are both Jack FM songs. But it is true. Jack tickle magic because I

cannot define it. I just can't point to something about them. I the best I can do is loser has the

jangly guitar, but also I think I feel like and I'm. This is a completely hypothetical Jack FM

listener, but I picture them knowing the lyrics to creep and I picture them owning okay

computer. I pictured them thinking creep rules. I think back, even to Jack FM listeners, is a littlea little thin, a little lightweight. Like they they're not like the lyrics are probably just nonsensical

every time, except for the chorus, which just recently I just, I always thought that was Dosey

Doe. I think Jack listeners probably like that creep is Radiohead and they can say, they can

then say like, wow, Radiohead? Sure. Have you heard them lately? Or you're like, oh, okay.

Computer is one of my favorites. It gives them a sense of taste. Um, gives these piggies, like,

a little. They think they're. It makes them feel sophisticated. I don't know, honestly. I'm gonna

say creep, but which I have the most affection for, Bec, but I. That's not the point. I don't I'm not

here to pick the best. I'm here to pick the most Jack FM vibes. And I'm gonna say creep. Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

Cooper Well, and you know, you mentioned the jangly guitar. Yes. It has that super iconic

intro. I think that the Radiohead, uh, creep intro is not as iconic, but it's one of those things

where I can picture people cheering as soon as they hear those first notes, because they know

that creep is coming. The people who would like to listen to creep. I can also hear it. And I

know for a fact that I have heard it on Jack FM coming out of a commercial, and it probably got

quite a bit of play. I do think, yes, back in his, in the very fiber of his being is genre bending.

He's not definable. That makes him very Jack FM um, but it doesn't. Like you said, it's kind of.

It's kind of higher art than that. It's more than that. It's not about if Jack FM liked it, if Jack FM

likes back and they like loser, they like it for the wrong reasons. Agreed.

Amelia Once again, not Jack FM's job to explain music. It's their job to put ten minutes

between commercials and. it's all content. Think Jack-fm marketed itself in a way that was like,

hey, I know, we know you don't want weather or traffic or deejays. We just play music that

sounds pro music. But it's incredibly cynical and anti-music. No one's championing an artist or

a or a. No one's weighing in or giving their opinion, or just getting the audience excited or

anticipating something. There's there. It's just it can be any song in between commercials and

yeah, like same with Beastie Boy. Like, it's not, it's not Jack FM's job. Like they don't need to

know how the sausage gets made. They just need some fucking sausage to throw in that

trough to make the piggies trot on over.

Cooper Sure.

Amelia So I don't know this one. Listeners, I'm sorry, but we're not. We're not experts.

Cooper Well, and. Yeah, but there's just something to it, though. Where? Yes. Jack-fm. It's

very. DNA is genre agnostic. You know, it fancies itself being ironic and funny and self-aware

and sarcastic and slouchy, but it doesn't get it. It doesn't. It says those things, but then it

doesn't act those things. And yeah, for me, that's the reason why loser both fits and doesn't fit

loser. The song fits loser and Beck as a whole kind of don't. For me they because they more

embody that actual mentality. Whereas, you know, creep is just it's so dripping with self-

loathing and earnest and just, I don't know, I mean, just even the fact that Radiohead hates it

makes it feel like it belongs to Jack FM.

Amelia Jack FM's not getting a party started, or it's not getting you to feel away. Which loser in

a ten minute run could probably, like, be a great start and put people in a better mood or

depending on what three songs come after it? Yeah, no. I think Jack FM listeners respond toas a standalone song.

Cooper They want to scream that chorus. They want the unity of just screaming those lyrics at

the top of their lungs. While, yeah, I don't know, it's hard because loser is unpredictable. It's

like something you've never heard before, but yet it has pieces that are familiar and it feels

very effortless, which it sounds like it kind of was because it just was mostly improvised. And

but all of those things do feel in the mission statement like that's what Jack-fm is saying they're

about, but that's not what they're showing they're about. I don't know. For me, that's the that's

the bottom line. I think that I really, really had a hard time with this one. And I I'm coming down

on creep just because I think I think I think loser is, uh, I don't know.

Amelia I know, I know, it's unsatisfying in a way that we can't.

Cooper I don't.

Amelia Like it. No. Gotta split this baby. Yeah. No, this is a hard decision. Um, because, yeah,

we just. We just got to split this baby, like, cut this baby in half, which when people talk about

King Solomon being wise, I think that's the only example they have.

Cooper Like the baby splitting?

Amelia Yeah. Oh, that was your idea that moms don't want their baby cut in half.

Speaker 13 Oh.

Amelia You're not wise. That's just. You're just not a psycho. Yeah. Oh. That guy. You'd have

to have the wisdom of a million people to not cut a baby in half. Like what a oh, so, so oh so

meaningful. Name one other thing that Solomon did that was wise. And I can't even. I can't

even give him the baby one. It was obvious. Okay.

Cooper Just some common sense.

Amelia Yeah. We don't have an email because nobody sends us emails at at gmail.com. No

one does it. Cooper, do we have a voicemail?

Cooper We do have a voicemail, though. So let's go ahead and give that a play.

Amelia that is a great voicemail.

Cooper Yes. Thank you.

Amelia you didn't mention your name, but we didn't need it. We just needed your vote. And a

great, great little story about prison. I didn't know you could get everything except for music.

Yeah, that's that's that sounds like a novel or something.

Cooper So that's an extra vote for loser, and we're about to hear the results. I haven't seen

these yet. Like. Like we said, we're recording this literally this week, so.

Amelia Yeah, there's no there's no time jump. We're just doing this. Uh, okay. Counting thatvoicemail, I have a winner of match four of thirty two. The winner of this will go on to the sweet

sixteen. We have okay. The songs were back, loser versus Radiohead, creep and with seventy

six point four seven percent of the vote, loser wins. The audience chose loser at a massive.

Cooper I was gonna say, is, uh, is Fleetwood Mac uh, on the bracket this week? Because we

got ourselves a landslide.

Amelia Creep didn't get a lot of votes. They got twenty three point five three percent O margin

was the word I was looking for. But that's all. So loser wins this week.

Cooper So loser is the winner. How about that?

Amelia How about that okay. I mean.

Cooper Listen my my ears don't hate it. This week was a struggle. And there wasn't a clear

picture in my head of who was supposed to win. Will I prefer to listen to loser in the next

round? Absolutely. So I don't I'm not I'm not mad at it. Um, right. I'm not positive I agree. But,

you know, we'll see how it does in the sweet teen sixteen.

Amelia Yeah. I mean, it would be going up against whoever wins our tie.

Cooper Whoa.

Amelia So when you think about it, I think because that would be that would be matched two

of round two. Fuck. We got a long way to go, guys.

Cooper And if that if that ends up being Beastie Boys, then that's really interesting.

Amelia How is it interesting, Cooper. Tell us how. Explain what you mean.

Cooper I just mean that thinking about it being referred to, uh, at the time as a novelty song,

the likes of you got to fight for your right to party.

Amelia Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cooper These. We hit this little pocket of songs that seem to share the same DNA. Yeah.

Jack, Jack FM has been mining this DNA out of them with a syringe.

Cooper Okay, well, there it is. Um, yeah, I don't know. I truly am kind of not sure how to feel

this week, but I guess ultimately, for my love of Beck, I am happy that I will get to hear this

song again in the bracket. So. But for now, please remember you go vote in the polls on our

Instagram account. Amelia, have you determined if you are sticking to posts versus stories?

Amelia Oh um, yeah. Guys, I'm so sorry. Like I'm bad at this. I need to figure out a great place

to vote for everyone. Uh, Instagram's just not it. I'm figuring I'll figure it out. You guys, please,

just.

Cooper So just go to our Instagram account at magic one word, and it will either be in the reel

or on the stories as we figure this out. This is a pilot program. We'll we'll get there eventually.You can only vote on the Instagram account. So that is where you're going to go cast your

vote. So if you submit a vote through email, TikTok, YouTube, anything else, it will not count. In

fact, we don't even know how you did that because we haven't set those things up yet except

for the email. However, you can call and leave us a voicemail at our hotline. Number four two

four six six six one seven one one. Use this opportunity to campaign for which song you think

has the more magic vibes, and you can call us and leave a voicemail at four two four six six six

one seven one one. Use this opportunity to campaign for which song you think has the more

Jack FM vibes that week, because we will count your impassioned voicemails as a vote in

addition to the votes cast on Instagram. That's twice the voting power. This is important,

people. You can also email us any relevant anecdotes at gmail.com. Please do. We'd love to

hear some.

Amelia So all the information is in the show notes, like we put all the links, all the crucial

information, including our email address. So if you could fucking write an email.

Cooper Okay, so on to next week. Round five of the bracket we have train drops of Jupiter. So

much slurping. Versus the Black Crowes. Hard to handle. Okay, well, I think I prefer that

version to the real song.

Amelia So right for a second there. Kind of great R2d2 ish.

Cooper Um, all right. So that'll be an exciting one. We look forward to seeing you guys again

next week. Yeah. Amelia, I hope you have a great week.

Amelia You too. Cooper I'm moving. I'm gonna be in a new place. No more Beverly Hills.

Cooper Rejoin us regular people. Maybe.

Amelia I had no business being in Beverly Hills.

Cooper What do we normally see at the end? Oh, yeah. All right, so once again, I'm Cooper

Willis.

Amelia And I'm Amelia Scannell.

Cooper And this.

Amelia Is has been.

Cooper Tactical.

Amelia Magic.

Cooper Magic.

Amelia See you.

Cooper Bye bye.