A cool little trifle that somehow turned into an anthem for a generation before everyone -- especially its creator -- finally got sick of it, "Loser" is one of the oddest hit singles of the '90s, from the circumstances of its creation (according to legend, Beck and co-writer Carl Stephenson were introduced by the owners of Bong Load Records only a couple of hours before "Loser" was recorded, with Beck's delta blues-style slide guitar and improvised fake-rap lyrics set over Stephenson's samples and loops in one brief session in a living room studio) to its utterly alien sound. Beck's lyrics in the verses are a tumble of images that don't make a lick of sense ("And my time is a piece of wax that's falling on a termite who's choking on the splinters"? Pardon?), connected to a half-Spanish chorus that's equally meaningless but maddeningly difficult to remove from one's head. It's a complete novelty, and the fact that Beck was able to create an entire career without ever doing another song that sounded a thing like it is testament to its singular weirdness. -- Stewart Mason (allmusic.com)