"The only currency that matters are the things we say to each other when we're uncool."

On New Year's Eve 1998 at Bondi Pavilion, a skinny kid wearing a zebra head rocked my world.

If people one day ask me who the most important artist of my generation was, I'd give pause. Names like Kurt Cobain, Prince and David Byrne might creep through my head. In terms of talent and impact, I might stick for some time on a person like Chuck D – perhaps the only artist to display equal measures of cold gutted-power and eloquance, while still sounding damn funky.

But for me, I'd have to settle on a guy like Beck. Few statements to burst onto and define a scene worked for me in the way that Beck's immortal chorus line of 1994 did...

Soy un perdidor, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

A white guy who thinks he's black, a folk singer with hip hop beats, a versatile performer who's never bothered changing his hair style. Beck is the Tarantino of music, the kid in raggy jeans and Chuck Taylor sneakers who lingered so long in his youth in dusty record stores that he somehow breathed in every emotion from each slab of vinyl.

Beck sings sad like he's been dumped each year for a decade. He steps into genre-bending as though he were stepping into his favourite bar.

There is an ease with Beck that must give other musicians the heebees. For some reason, like Jack White, this kid somehow just has The Knowledge. No marketing spin required, thank you.

Like every Beck record, Guero has started sinking in with me. It will become a favourite of my year. When Beck sounds optimistic, you believe him. In fact, considering how down he can sound too, you're actually relieved for him.

Dylanesque? Defininately, but only in the way Dylan was Elvis-esque or Little Richard-esque or Mozart-esque. Stealing with sincerity is an art form, and those masters of it make their results sound like nobody else's.

Viva Beck. Rock on, dude.

See Loser lyrics