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 Surprisingly Good Nov 25, 2008
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 to more junk food fare, but I could not. It was so infectious I had to have more. The rest of the CD is similarly brilliant, infectious, and actually of great substance. 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.
 ... is a lazy album. Nov 24, 2008
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 "two-turntables-and-a-microphone" days, but now they just sound sloppy. Artwork? 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. **
Look, it's a Beck CD, the 2008 one Nov 13, 2008
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 of the songs are novel and interesting at least once. He's a bleedin' genius.
Back to the Roots Oct 22, 2008
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.
Great Groovy Sound Oct 21, 2008
This one is a winner. The flow of the album as a whole is entertaining. I purchased 4 cd's and this by far is the top out of them. Although I have enjoyed Beck in the past, this album has made me a believer.
A must have! It's getting dominant rotation in the car.
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