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Beck - Modern Guilt Review
Beck - Modern Guilt (2008)
There's NOTHING to hate about this collection of quirky and irresistibly catchy weirdness.
While Danger Mouse is kind of the “it-boy” producer of the moment (Martina Topley Bird, The Black Keys, the Shortwave Set) - this album is the PERFECT pairing between the heavy beatman mixer of one half of the brain child that is Gnarles Barkley and the sonic-beatnik of the loser generation: Beck.
The songs are short and hard-hitting, and while they carry the stamp of Danger Mouse's cool beats - they still remain undeniably "Beck" from start to finish. Any "danger" (sorry for that pun) of Modern Guilt turning into "The Danger Mouse Show" - is dissolved the second the play button is pushed, but it was a relevant fear.
Good song-writing is often over-shadowed by a producer whose sound and desirable style has become all too familiar.
It happend to Madonna with William Orbit.
It happened to David Bowie with Trent Reznor.
Who's to say it couldn't happen to Beck?
Fortunately for us all - this is not the case.
Not as unbearably sad as Sea Change - but not near as pumped up as Midnight Vultures, Modern Guilt is more a mix of the mellow coolness Beck traveled through on his Mutations record, married with the foot stomping catchiness of Guero.
While plenty of the songs are every bit as addictive as everyone's summer-favourite - Girl, the content is a bit on the heavier side - paranoid, brow-raising...a little environmentally conscious - edging at political, but that big ole sensitive scab is picked at in a way that only Beck is capable of. Not once coming off as preachy - not even close - the songs beat along with the buzzing synthesizers and those insane, fuzzy, cat-snarling guitars - which are among the most intricately arranged of his entire career.
The best part about the ten tracks is that they are short. They are too the point. They're not long, self-indulgent pieces of noise rock - which can get annoying (and which got annoying on his last two releases) - but he proves more than a handful of times on this record that he is not shying away from Sonic Youth-land either.
Looking back on Beck's amazing discography - it's obvious he is probably one of the most under-rated songwriters of this generation, and his growth as a song writer on this album make it all the more obvious.
Beck is every bit as innovative as Radiohead, Massive Attack, Bjork or Air - yet his hillbilly sensibilities give him this grounded, down-to-earth vibe which makes him an easy artist to dismiss as "quirky". Starting with Odelay, and with every album since, it's becoming more and more apparent that he's much more than that.
Like Neil Young, like Bob Dylan, like Sinead O'Connor and David Bowie - Beck is a true artist who is lucky enough to have found his voice immediately.
Lucky for us all he's armed with a billion different stories to tell - and talented enough to tell them all a billion different ways.
Walls contains some of the craziest, loosest, "who gives a f---" beats with a "ride in the convertible with the top down on a hot, humid, sleepless night in August" feel.
You know what I'm talking about.
Chemtrails could be a poetic homage to September 11th, album opener Orphans - which is both stark and happy simultaneously plays out like a finger-snapping 21st Century re-telling of the end times but is followed with Gamma Ray - which may or may not be about global warming - it really doesn't matter because the beachy riffs blow it all away and make you wanna go-go dance any "modern guilt" right out the door.
Our own self-destruction is a common theme through the entire album. Musings of street fires, hurricanes, ice caps melting, heat waves - all speckled with surreal biblical and religious imagery run rampant through these ten tracks - which time in at just over half an hour.
The album is a quick listen - and can make for a great soundtrack to a backyard barbecue, mellow background music at a party...or a rowdy night out at a club.
But if you listen a little bit closer...you might pick up a small tinge of paranoia...a slight pang of worry...almost like a warning - that regardless of the fact that you're tapping your toe...all is not well.
In fact, all is very, very far from well.
Things are bad...and they are probably only going to get worse.
But Beck - ever the gentleman, has made this easy to ignore, if we choose to ignore it.
Simply turn the volume up, get lost in the beats and keep tapping that toe.
It's just Modern Guilt...messing with your head.
Or...it's just a really kick-ass album.
Either way - it's not music that will change the world...it won't even SAVE the world - but it sure sounds DAMN good!
P.S. -
For a neat listening experiment - listen to the title track - Modern Guilt - and follow it up with Feist's My Moon My Man. Notice any similarities?
I love that kinda stuff.
There's NOTHING to hate about this collection of quirky and irresistibly catchy weirdness.
While Danger Mouse is kind of the “it-boy” producer of the moment (Martina Topley Bird, The Black Keys, the Shortwave Set) - this album is the PERFECT pairing between the heavy beatman mixer of one half of the brain child that is Gnarles Barkley and the sonic-beatnik of the loser generation: Beck.
The songs are short and hard-hitting, and while they carry the stamp of Danger Mouse's cool beats - they still remain undeniably "Beck" from start to finish. Any "danger" (sorry for that pun) of Modern Guilt turning into "The Danger Mouse Show" - is dissolved the second the play button is pushed, but it was a relevant fear.
Good song-writing is often over-shadowed by a producer whose sound and desirable style has become all too familiar.
It happend to Madonna with William Orbit.
It happened to David Bowie with Trent Reznor.
Who's to say it couldn't happen to Beck?
Fortunately for us all - this is not the case.
Not as unbearably sad as Sea Change - but not near as pumped up as Midnight Vultures, Modern Guilt is more a mix of the mellow coolness Beck traveled through on his Mutations record, married with the foot stomping catchiness of Guero.
While plenty of the songs are every bit as addictive as everyone's summer-favourite - Girl, the content is a bit on the heavier side - paranoid, brow-raising...a little environmentally conscious - edging at political, but that big ole sensitive scab is picked at in a way that only Beck is capable of. Not once coming off as preachy - not even close - the songs beat along with the buzzing synthesizers and those insane, fuzzy, cat-snarling guitars - which are among the most intricately arranged of his entire career.
The best part about the ten tracks is that they are short. They are too the point. They're not long, self-indulgent pieces of noise rock - which can get annoying (and which got annoying on his last two releases) - but he proves more than a handful of times on this record that he is not shying away from Sonic Youth-land either.
Looking back on Beck's amazing discography - it's obvious he is probably one of the most under-rated songwriters of this generation, and his growth as a song writer on this album make it all the more obvious.
Beck is every bit as innovative as Radiohead, Massive Attack, Bjork or Air - yet his hillbilly sensibilities give him this grounded, down-to-earth vibe which makes him an easy artist to dismiss as "quirky". Starting with Odelay, and with every album since, it's becoming more and more apparent that he's much more than that.
Like Neil Young, like Bob Dylan, like Sinead O'Connor and David Bowie - Beck is a true artist who is lucky enough to have found his voice immediately.
Lucky for us all he's armed with a billion different stories to tell - and talented enough to tell them all a billion different ways.
Walls contains some of the craziest, loosest, "who gives a f---" beats with a "ride in the convertible with the top down on a hot, humid, sleepless night in August" feel.
You know what I'm talking about.
Chemtrails could be a poetic homage to September 11th, album opener Orphans - which is both stark and happy simultaneously plays out like a finger-snapping 21st Century re-telling of the end times but is followed with Gamma Ray - which may or may not be about global warming - it really doesn't matter because the beachy riffs blow it all away and make you wanna go-go dance any "modern guilt" right out the door.
Our own self-destruction is a common theme through the entire album. Musings of street fires, hurricanes, ice caps melting, heat waves - all speckled with surreal biblical and religious imagery run rampant through these ten tracks - which time in at just over half an hour.
The album is a quick listen - and can make for a great soundtrack to a backyard barbecue, mellow background music at a party...or a rowdy night out at a club.
But if you listen a little bit closer...you might pick up a small tinge of paranoia...a slight pang of worry...almost like a warning - that regardless of the fact that you're tapping your toe...all is not well.
In fact, all is very, very far from well.
Things are bad...and they are probably only going to get worse.
But Beck - ever the gentleman, has made this easy to ignore, if we choose to ignore it.
Simply turn the volume up, get lost in the beats and keep tapping that toe.
It's just Modern Guilt...messing with your head.
Or...it's just a really kick-ass album.
Either way - it's not music that will change the world...it won't even SAVE the world - but it sure sounds DAMN good!
P.S. -
For a neat listening experiment - listen to the title track - Modern Guilt - and follow it up with Feist's My Moon My Man. Notice any similarities?
I love that kinda stuff.
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