Modern Guilt Accessories
 Viva La Vida
Evil Urges
Fleet Foxes
Consolers Of The Lonely
Narrow Stairs
Third
Dear Science
Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust
Only By The Night
In Rainbows
Modern Guilt Reviews
I will be honest, this is the first Beck CD I have ever purchased. In reality it was like Doritos.delicious at first, but not sustaining. Gamma Ray was the first track I heard, and I wanted to chalk it up to more junk food fare, but I could not. The rest of the CD is similarly brilliant, infectious, and actually of great substance. It seemed like a post-modern mish mash, very unique-at first.
It was so infectious I had to have more. Modern Guilt is an appropriate title as I almost feel like I am selling out my indie-cool credentials in buying this (as if Beck were a poseur), but the cd reminds us that it is okay to have fun and still be arty. In the past I would here a track and say to myself, "wow that is so cool". I am glad there were all those previous recordings, playing with strange musicality (kind of ultra-white boy chic)and wacky lyricism because it leads to this release.
The songwriting structures are repetitious. The music faintly recalls a 60's style, but lacks the 60's convictions; this sounds like a lab exercise. The constantly distorted drums may have worked for Beck's "two-turntables-and-a-microphone" days, but now they just sound sloppy. Two nondescript black-and-white photos of musicians' feet and an exit sign, and ten pages of punctuation-light lyrics crammed at the bottom of otherwise white sheets.
Caveat emptor these empty archives. Artwork. The vocals are bland, bored, and buried beneath clichéd soundbytes. Modern Guilt is a lazy album - not lazy as in "laid-back," but lazy as in "did Beck spend any more time than the miserly 33-minute length of this disc on its songwriting, recording, mixing, production, and artwork." Well.
**
He's a bleedin' genius. Yep, another Beck earworm. Anyway, this is a another solid Beck album. That means you have some of the best song hooks possible, a bunch of different musical influences, some songs which are great radio fodder, and some that are seemingly pointless. Gamma Ray is a song that I haven't been able to get out of my head.
And even the least useful of the songs are novel and interesting at least once. But he does that album after album, without fail. Beck, to me, hits about the same on each album. 1/3 great songs, 1/3 perfectly fine songs, 1/3 less brilliant songs.
I was a bit sketptical after "the Information", but this is an amzing album that rivals any modern rock I have in my library. Great grab, and listen to "The Orphan", "Gamma Ray" and the titled track "Modern Guilt". amazing. This album gets back to what is great about Beck.
I purchased 4 cd's and this by far is the top out of them. It's getting dominant rotation in the car. A must have. Although I have enjoyed Beck in the past, this album has made me a believer. This one is a winner. The flow of the album as a whole is entertaining.
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