Customer Reviews

Modern Guilt

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Beck has done something that very, very few artists have ever been able to do: He's transitioned from young phenom genius innovator to established professional, without sacrificing artistically or compromising his craft. In my opinion, Beck has two masterpieces. First was Odelay. It built off the out-of-nowhere, wonderful Mellow Gold to hone his skills into something really amazing. Second was Sea Change. This was a high-water mark in Beck's brilliance in melding lyrics, melody, and soundscape. I never thought Beck could top Mellow Gold and Odelay, but Sea Change became my favorite Beck album and remains so to this day.

Since then, he's released some very interesting albums. The Information, in particular, has grown on me, revealing more and more as time goes on. It's a great album to revisit, sprawling as it may be.

Summer of 2008 sees the release of Modern Guilt, and, like Guero and The Information, it's got all you'd expect from Beck: cool beats, interesting lyrics, marble-mouthed singing, wide variations in rhythm, and immaculate production. Perhaps I could criticize it for not being as mind-blowing as Odelay and Sea Change, or for not being as totally zany as Midnight Vultures. But would it not be better to hear it for what it is and appreciate the way Beck has created his most focused album in years?

I love the way this simultaneously sounds like a Beck album, yet resists comparison with any one of his discs. It fits into Beck's catalog as another strong entry, another variation on the themes he's been exploring for years. Though it does not defy expectations, it certainly lives up to them.

2008 has been a prolific year for releases from major artists (REM, Counting Crows, The Black Crowes, Colplay, Alanis Morrisette, Lil Wayne, etc etc). Most of these releases have been worthy of praise, but I have found a few flaws in all of them. Call me an idiot, but I cant find any flaws in Beck's new release, Modern Guilt, although I am sure some reviewers are itching to point some flaws out to me.

As Beck gets closer to 40, his songwriting has matured. He seems to use fewer samples than he used to. He still wears his influences on his sleeve, but his personality is all over the music. His collaboration with Danger Mouse worked well. The "beats" are paced well enough to make the entire album easy to enjoy in one listen, but you will want to listen again as soon as you're done.

Becks lyrics have always been quirky and obtuse, and this album is no exception. But this time the imagery seems thicker and more foreboding. The bodies drowning in the moody and ethereal "Chemtrails" are certainly morose and some may think Beck a bit paranoid, but he may be justified. The crunchy, guitar driven "Profanity Prayers" could be the highlight of the album and is my personal favorite. "Who's gonna answer profanity prayers" is quite a slap in the face of modern man. Our calls to a higher power have become nothing more than four letter words. Beck addresses a higher power at several points and he certainly makes more sense than the hair sprayed con men on TV.

Beck has proven here that middle age doesnt dull creativity. The songs Ive mentioned above along with the bass heavy "Orphans", "Gamma Ray" and "Youthless" easily rank along with some his best songs. (I know this sounds weird...but I can picture Austin Powers doing his "shag dance" to "Gamma Ray"). Some of the songs are experiments, such as the slightly eccentric "Replica", but the experiments work. You may need to listen more than once, but none of the songs are filler. Every song has something to offer and seems as if it will offer even more the next time you listen.

If Beck isnt nominated for at least Alternative Album of the Year, the academy of music and recorded arts is a bunch of idiots.

Musical chameleon Beck released his latest album, "Modern Guilt," on his 38th birthday and the songs found therein display an artist far removed from the 23-year-old Los Angeles slacker who was telling us he was 'un perdedor' on "Mellow Gold," his 1994 breakthrough release. This disc finds Mr. Hansen truly exploring the heavy themes of death and personal reflection for the first time, and the results are nothing short of stellar. Middle age, it seems, has its benefits.

Beck tried this feat, the "serious record," two years ago on 2006's "The Information," but the message was pretty much lost to critics and fans, who thought the filtered-through-a-ColecoVision beats and lyrics about cellular phones were more post-apocalyptic and self-referential than anything else. He gets straight to the point this time around, with 10 concise tracks, a 34-minute runtime and not an ounce of leftover ideas to clutter the proceedings.

To the delight of fans the world over, Beck enlisted Danger Mouse (Brian Burton), the reigning critical darling of the music-production world, to man the boards on "Modern Guilt." They make an excellent team, what with their shared taste for `60s psychedelic rock, twitchy percussion and looped string samples -- not to mention their impeccable ear for catchy riffs. The surf-rock bass line that serves as the backbone for "Gamma Ray" makes it the closest approximation to a pop song Beck has written in years.

Perhaps tired of hearing that his last two records were trying too hard to be "Odelay 2.0," Beck has dialed back his use of left-field audio samples and bits of obscure and forgotten songs from decades past, choosing instead to interpret those influences and recreate them as fairly straightforward rock tunes. People seem to forget that, if you ignore the space-cowboy production flourishes that saturate every last inch of Beck's late-`90s output, he was -- and still is -- one of the most prolific singer-songwriters of the last 25 years.

Of course, it wouldn't be a true Beck album if he didn't make room in his lyrics for a full notebook's worth of wacky one-liners and vaguely interpretable philosophical musings. The churning "Soul of a Man" finds our hero spitting out non sequiturs as if he made them up a few seconds before walking into the recording booth. "Beat my bones against the wall/Put a bank note on your bond/Gris-gris and a goldenrod/Deep down in a hollow log," goes one verse, the words apparently chosen for no reason other than to meet the song's syllabic needs.

"Chemtrails," the slow and dreamy lead single, addresses the urban legend that the vapor trails from commercial airliners contain chemicals that, once they fall to Earth and are inhaled by an unaware populace, allow the government to control us. (Sample lyric: "You and me hit by a test of white evil/Watching the jet planes go by") Now, that may just be the Scientology talking, but the fact remains that "Chemtrails" is one of the most beautifully composed Beck ballads in recent memory.

Prior to the release of "Modern Guilt," there was a lot of excited chatter over the news that soul singer Cat Power (Chan Marshall) would be making a cameo appearance on two of the album's tracks, "Orphans" and "Walls," but her contributions are so incidental (and not to mention barely audible) that I think mentioning them four-fifths of the way through my review will suffice.

The most notable aspect of "Modern Guilt," in my opinion, is that it is the first Beck album since 1999's "Midnite Vultures" to not have a single clunker on it. Perhaps they were crafted that way, to get in and out in less than four minutes each and leave you wanting more. And there's no guilt in that, modern or otherwise.

On his latest LP, Beck is carrying a lot of modern guilt, and he's not afraid to share it with anyone who will listen. Modern Guilt is another record in a long line of very solid (and occasionally extraordinary) work from Beck, who yet again befuddles listeners with his intricate and erratic wordplay, and even more obtuse arrangements and musical stylings. Despite Beck's deathly focus on the state of the world (including thoughts on war, the environment, and the challenges of trying to do something about them,) the album manages to maintain a distinctive musical focus while exercising creativity and a welcome precision.

Unlike Beck's previous two records, Modern Guilt isn't an oddball amalgamation of various styles and sounds, but again is a more focused take on folk heavily infused with psychedelic rock sounds. Track by track, the album tells the tale of the world's woes through old-school folk arrangements heavily augmented by the beat-shaping powers of Danger Mouse. Musically, the album is a cross between two of Beck's best works, Mutations and Sea Change. The record takes the dark, brooding folk sounds of Sea Change and adds a layer of depth and unexpected flourish in the vein of Mutations, which was one hell of a random album.

Essentially, this is a Beck album specifically targeted for Beck fans, and especially fans of his more singer-songwriter efforts. However, Modern Guilt has a kind of mainstream appeal that will likely earn success on the charts while maintaining the kind of artistic credibility that Beck has always been known for.

On "Modern Guilt", the 10th album of Beck's career, he teams up with wunderkind Danger Mouse and the result is sixties sounding psychedelia, akin to the Beach Boys, or more recently, Panda Bear (but more structured).

The 10 brief cuts on this CD are dreamy and melodic with layered harmonies and chiming guitars, opening cut the sublime "Orphans" being a fine example.
More upbeat is "Gamma ray", while the dreamy Beach Boys-esque "Chemtrails" is blissful.

Title track "Modern guilt" is a chugging pop/rocker, and "Youthless" has a groovy bassline. Other songs are the brief and eerie "Walls" with clattering beats, the chiming "Replica" with skittery beats, the buzzing and chugging Blues-like "Soul of a man", the fuzzy, bouncy "Profanity prayers", and closing is the dreamy ballad "Volcano".

"Modern guilt" comprises 10 tightly woven songs which take a look at the state of the world and what can be done about it. It does take quite a few spins to get into it, but once you do, you'll be away on a psychedelic ride.

The old saying "Time flies when you're having fun" couldn't ring truer than with Beck. If memory serves me right, Beck burst upon the scene seemingly out of nowhere (but, as many know, he comes from not one generation, but two, of musicians and artists who hung out with some of the avant garde luminaries of their day) with his off the wall smash hit "Loser" in 1993.

15 years later, I'm amused to read reviews of "Modern Guilt" calling it his psychedelic album. Beck likes to dabble in different styles on just about all of his albums, sometimes electric, and sometimes acoustic, but it's fair to describe all of his albums as psychedelic, and "Modern Guilt" is no exception.

Modern Guilt is arguably a little less consistent than Guero or The Information, but it's a tremendously enjoyable record. Some of the songs here are leftovers from the Information and/or Guero, and maybe the Sea Change songwriting sessions.

To my ears, Beck is not at his best when he emulates the canned drumbox electro robot funk stylings, but most of Modern Guilt is classic, catchy psychedelia. Beck is one of the few musicians around today who, like the Beatles in their time, can write psychedelic music and reach a wide audience at the same time.

This album makes me wonder what Sea Change would have sounded like if Beck had a late mood swing and remixed it. Like that great album, Beck is in a foul mood again, and looking at the world through a slacker-adult's cocked eye. "Youthless" is a prime example. A mournful song at the core, Danger Mouse clutters it with so much business that it's difficult to catch the underlying depression inherent in the lyric. The final song, the slow building "Volcano," has him creeping closer to a deadly fire, but claiming all he wants to do is "warm his old bones."

The first three songs flow like a suite, with "Orphans," "Chemtrails" and "Gamma Rays" (with its cool flute samples) playing out like an existential mid-life crisis. The old Mellow Gold "Loser" isn't just asking you to kill him, he's contemplating what comes after. There are "sinking boats" and "swallowed by evil" and "feeling so cold when I'm at home" all sucking you into his blackest place.

At the same time, the rat-a-tat production of Danger Mouse leads one to wonder just how wild Beck must have been about Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere, because "Crazy" seems to have informed a great deal of "Modern Guilt." Beck's guilt may be old hat, but the sounds are pure new century. The title track and "Soul of a Man" are both peppy and ominous, ala "Crazy," with "Profanity Prayers" hitting fever pitch before "Volcano" slows things at the finish.

With almost 15 years since "Loser" put this free associating jester on the map, Beck has now eased into a graceful middle age. "Modern Guilt" is a thoroughly adult record, a folk rant for the new century.

Both Beck and DJ Danger Mouse can be acquired tastes. The former's experimentation fusing multiple genres of music together can come off as novelty to some; the latter's out-there work with Cee-Lo Green as Gnarls Barkley can do the same.

But they're also both capable of working magic, as evidenced by Beck's previous effort, The Information as well as Danger Mouse's genius pairing of Jay-Z and the Beatles on The Grey Album and his expert sonic backdrops as one half of DangerDoom on The Mouse and the Mask.

Additionally, there's little doubt that both could be the co-editors at Obscure Music Quarterly (props to sports reporter The Jeff Mitchell for that one), so it should come as little surprise that when they got together to compare notes on their favorite old-school psychedelic rock, the result would be a lovely and weird psych-folk record that doesn't sound immediately like either artist.

On first listen, Modern Guilt seems like what would have happened if Beck and company had recorded The Information with a lot more acoustic instruments and reverb. The tight, thickly-layered harmonies of Information's "Strange Apparition" feature prominently, and the melancholy-future-paranoid vibe is still firmly in place.

And like much of Beck's other work, the old coexists anachronistically alongside the new: the skittery drum-and-bass percussion with the otherwise lilting "Replica"; square-wave synthesizer fills with the chugging title track. But several songs are straight-ahead band numbers, with minimal tinkering on Danger Mouse's part: the haunting, conspiracy-theory "Chemtrails," the stomping "Soul of a Man," and the surf-music-on-a-bad-acid-trip "Gamma Ray."

And while Modern Guilt is easily Beck's most mature-sounding record - one could make an argument for Sea Change, however - it's still a bit tricky making sense of his lyrics ("Trying to hold/Hold out for now/With these ice caps melting down/With the transistor sound and my Chevrolet terraplane /Going round, round, round/Come a little gamma ray /Standing in a hurricane /Your brains are bored /Like a refugee /From the houses burning /And the heat wave's calling your name," from "Gamma Ray"). It's best to just enjoy the imagery, and the subtle touches of '60s psychedelia sprinkled throughout the record work well with Beck's stream-of-consciousness wordplay, as well as give it a rootsier sound that could just as easily appeal to boomers as to their children.

Danger Mouse seems to bring out an excellent side in whoever he's working with, whether it's Cee-Lo, the Black Keys or MF Doom. While it may not be Beck's best album, Modern Guilt is a very enjoyable step in yet another slightly new direction.

On his latest album, Modern Guilt, Beck returns to a more up-tempo affair. Well, an exception to the rule is the last track, "Volcano." Anyway, this is the most enjoyable Beck cd since Sea Changes, musically speaking. In some ways, it's even better, because it rocks. Sometimes it even sounds like someone is actually playing a drum kit rather than recording with electronic drums, which is something I always prefer hearing. "Volcano" sounds more like an outtake from Sea Changes minus a strumming acoustic guitar perhaps. It is the only track on Modern Guilt that doesn't seem like it belongs. However, every album needs to have at least one ballad, so to speak, on it. To be fair, Modern Guilt could have had one or two more slow numbers on it for balance, but the cd rocked so much, and the album was so short that there wasn't enough time to worry about an equal mix. If anybody wants to hear Beck play truly beautiful folk-rock numbers, they should try Sea Change. Modern Guilt and Sea Change are essentially the opposite of each other, both in form and tempo, but I think they are two of Beck's best!

I concur with previous reviewers that the first four or five songs are just some of the craftiest songwriting out there, though my favorite tune is edging toward "Profanity Prayers". I bought on the thought that others described it "like The Information" but I don't think it really is. Just like any Beck album, very hard to categorize, compare with/to, which is a true virtue of an artist who endures. This just has confidence througout - there's not a lot of "look at me" riffs or beeps or fizzles or what have you here (like "In Rainbows", for example - the band doesn't feel a need to overwhelm with crazy sound, but simply make pure music and truly reflect who they are), but the beats are catchy, the lyrics deliver the usual mind-twisting precision and there's an undercurrent of optimism here, perhaps throwing a few shovel-fuls of dirt on the Sea Change downer... Yeah, it could be 3 tracks longer, but The Information had about 3 too many tracks. I appreciate the self-editing. A great soundtrack for just about anything... ET