Serious Contenders: Beck, "Loser"

I resent the idea that this song is a "slacker anthem," not the least which because I'm too much of a slacker to know what that's supposed to mean. What it is is a testament to how gloriously weird music was getting in the wake of the alternative explosion in the early 90's. Beck was not only inventive and experimental with his sound, with that patently intuitive blues riff underlining the song's hip hop beat, but meticulous in his nonsense. Those lyrics of course don't have any reason to mean anything, but they have a freewheeling logic to themselves that feels as strong and relevant as "Like a Rolling Stone."