THE FREEWHEELIN’ BECK

So, is Beck a New York or a Silver Lake kind of guy these days?

The pop-rock auteur, who goes into tonight’s Grammys as the overwhelming critical favorite in the best album competition, smiles at the question, which is what you’d expect him to do.

After all, there is a bit of a smile in much of Beck’s music, notably “Loser,” the 1994 single that established him in the media as the spokesman for the slacker generation--a designation he disliked as much as Bob Dylan resisted being called the spokesman of his generation in the ‘60s.

Between the dopey but irresistible record and the crush of media attention, everything was in place for Beck to serve out his 15 minutes of fame and then be relegated to the ranks of the one-hit wonders.

The Angeleno--who lived in New York for two years in the late ‘80s before returning to L.A.’s Silver Lake district and starting his recording career--has had the last laugh, however.

He’s the toast of both coasts after coming up last year with “Odelay,” a knockout of an album that underscores the seriousness and depth of his artistry. Blessed with the revolutionary aura of mid-’60s Dylan, the album combines solid songwriting craft in the country-folk-blues roots tradition and spectacular contemporary textures that draw upon everything from hip-hop to world music. In last week’s Village Voice poll of the nation’s pop music critics, “Odelay” was named the best album of 1996, drawing as many points as the next two finishers combined.

Beck is 26, but he looks 18. He’s thin, and sometimes he sports a blank gaze that contributes to the slacker image. But he’s surprisingly articulate and opinionated as he sits in the lobby lounge of his hotel here. On the eve of the Grammys, Beck, who will perform “Where It’s At” on the telecast, speaks about life in the creative and media fast lanes, and even has a few good words for his hometown.

*

Question: So, are you a New York or Silver Lake kind of guy?

Answer: I came here when I was 18. I had been playing folk music around Los Angeles and I realized I was more interested in the folk scene that was here in New York in the ‘60s than the ‘70s singer-songwriter thing in Los Angeles. So, I came here to check it out . . . to see what kind of ghosts were hanging around. And, there was actually a strong scene in the Village. But New York’s just a much more complicated and expensive place . . . a harder place in general to live. So, I headed back to Los Angeles.

*

Q: What do you like about Silver Lake and Los Angeles?

A: Los Angeles is so diverse. You’ve got a little bit of Vietnam, a little bit of El Salvador. . . . As a musician, I need that kind of stimulation. I want to be exposed to something different, something exotic, something that I didn’t grow up with. But that whole Silver Lake thing is completely overblown. All the neighborhoods in Los Angeles are good. I’d give it up for Glendale and Burbank just as much as I’d give it up for Inglewood.

*

Q: My guess is a lot of people hear all the diverse musical textures in your records and think of you as this exciting record maker but don’t realize how good a songwriter you are. Why do you choose to dress the songs up so much?

A: I played folk music for so many years when I was getting started that it got a little boring, to be honest. There’s something that I’ll always love about the honesty and the directness of acoustic music. But I wanted something that was a little more stimulating and challenging to me personally.

*

Q: How did you keep your balance when you received all that spokesman-for-a-generation talk following “Loser”?

A: The whole thing was surreal. “Loser” was a song I recorded when I was 20 or something. When you’re that age, you are just starting to figure things out, so that attention came at an awkward time. To me, it was a pretty dumb song. It certainly didn’t sum me up, even though everyone assumed I was the song. It was a bad case of mistaken identity.

So, we started doing very confrontational, completely experimental shows that left everyone confused. We’d start a song, then go into some fusion, then into these free-form odysseys. I didn’t know what else to do because I didn’t know about myself and my future.

*

Q: What finally gave you confidence?

A: It was probably just time. It was like the morning after or something. You wake up and you’re still here and, thankfully, you still had the desire to make music. You build up this armor.

*

Q: What do you think is the biggest misconception about you?

A: A lot of people think I’m this channel-surfing guy . . . that I pick up this piece of information from here and that piece of information from there and paste it together in a record. But it’s not what I do. I am aware of things, but I don’t feed on television and magazines. I’m a songwriter and that means I’ve got to go into something inside of me to come up with the ideas.

*

Q: Are you a big TV or movie fan?

A: I don’t even have a TV. I also didn’t go to the movies for years, but I just started going again. I liked “Sling Blade” a lot. . . . Dwight Yoakam was amazing in it. It was a movie that let you walk inside and live and breathe in it. It didn’t overstimulate and attack you like so many movies do.

*

Q: Why didn’t you go to movies for so long?

A: I like to just check in on things . . . to see how things evolve. I hadn’t watched MTV, for instance, for about a year, then I watched it last night and it was interesting to see the changes. That’s the only way you get perspective. Some people get so immersed in the media that they can’t see what’s really going on.

*

Q: What about the whole slacker issue? How do you think that got started?

A: Someone decided they needed a slacker guy and they drafted me and then everyone started pasting my words around what they wanted to present.

*

Q: But do you identify with the slacker image?

A: We don’t talk much about class in America, but we all know it exists. A lot of young people come from a background where they don’t have much opportunity or education. And they are vulnerable because they don’t know how to speak for themselves. It’s not that they are stupid. It’s just that they haven’t learned how to express themselves.

*

Q: What about the Grammys? You looking forward to the telecast?

A: Yeah. It’s such a different side of the music business to me . . . such a spectacle. It’s also a challenge to perform in that context and to make a connection with such a large audience. What I’m doing isn’t the mainstream. It’s not what most viewers are expecting.

*

Q: So do you see it as a challenge? A lot of rock artists are a bit condescending about the Grammys.

A: I think that’s too easy. Anybody can get up there and play a noise solo or assume some rebellious stance. Ultimately, I think it’s much more effective if you can subvert from within . . . if you can touch people with music or a performance that is so different from what they have been conditioned to seeing that they think it’s from another planet. Tonight, I’ll be like their man from Mars.