Beck's new album Modern Guilt, produced with Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton, will be released July 8, 2008. The new album contains 10 new songs, and with the exception of last year's Grammy-nominated, digital-only single "Timebomb", Modern Guilt is the first new material Beck has written since the prolific stretch that produced 2005's platinum Guero and 2006's universally acclaimed The Information. Modern Guilt is a tightly assembled group of songs that range in lyrical tone from introspection and social commentary to off the cuff wordplay and lighthearted humor. Musically, the album's ten tracks vacillate between economy and experimentation, hybrid and pop classicism, while consistently manifesting Beck and Danger Mouse's shared interest in psych-rock, folk, electronic minimalism and orchestration. Beck is about to embark on a tour of the UK and Europe, followed by a number of US headline and festival appearances, culminating in Beck's biggest hometown headline show to date, September 20, 2008 at the Hollywood Bowl.
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In the last few years, Beck has freely sailed the seas of electronic and alternative music, but he is now back on land with Modern Guilt, an album that gravitates mostly toward electronic music and that, unfortunately, only has a couple of songs that really stand out ("Modern Guilt," "Orphans"). The problem has nothing to do with the fact that this CD is more electronic than acoustic. The sound is poor, and it sounds as if Beck were actually singing out of a barrel. Also, the beat doesn't change from one song to the next, and if you don't listen carefully to each song, you could not tell when tracks change. Despite Beck being one of the most creative and versatile musicians in recent years, the songs of this album have no depth. Let's just hope that Beck surprises with his next. --Ernesto Sánchez (People en Español)
En los últimos años, Beck ha navegado libremente por las aguas de las música electrónica y la alternativa, ahora está regreso al mundo de la música con Modern Guilt, un disco que se inclina más hacia la música electrónica y que desgraciadamente sólo tiene un par de canciones que se destacan como "Modern Guilt" y "Orphans." Y el problema no tiene nada que ver con el hecho de que sea un disco más electrónico que acústico, el sonido del disco es muy pobre, pareciera que Beck está cantando dentro de una cubeta, y el beat no parece cambiar de una canción a la otra. Si no se pone extrema atención a cada canción no se dará cuenta del momento en que cambian los tracks. Si bien Beck es uno de los músicos más creativos y versátiles de los últimos años hay que decir que este es un disco en el que los temas carecen de profundidad. Esperemos que Beck realmente nos sorprenda con su siguiente producción. --Ernesto Sánchez (People en Español)
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Surprisingly Good:
I will be honest, this is the first Beck CD I have ever purchased. In the past I would here a track and say to myself, "wow that is so cool". It seemed like a post-modern mish mash, very unique---at first. In reality it was like Doritos...delicious at first, but not sustaining. 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. Gamma Ray was the first track I heard, and I wanted to chalk it up... more info
... is a lazy album.:
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 . . . 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 vocals are bland, bored, and buried beneath clichéd soundbytes. The constantly distorted drums may have worked for Beck's... more info
Look, it's a Beck CD, the 2008 one:
Gamma Ray is a song that I haven't been able to get out of my head. 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. Beck, to me, hits about the same on each album. 1/3 great songs, 1/3 perfectly fine songs, 1/3 less brilliant songs. But he does that album after album, without fail. And even the least useful... more info
Back to the Roots:
This album gets back to what is great about Beck. 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.
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