Beck – “Modern Guilt”

I do not think that Beck is depressed, and that he simply naturally often times comes up with a sort of dark and grim lyrical standpoint. “Walls” is a song that displays this mood, as do most of the cuts on the album. Beck does sound old, it is sometimes difficult to decipher what it is that Beck is saying, and that can sometimes be interesting depending upon the artist…but in this case it simply does not work. All of the songs are very Pop in sound, at least on the whole and very big on vocal choruses; but it is nothing that would appear in a commercial promoting Mountain Dew or Doritos. It just seems kind of strange, this sort of Middle Path that Beck is walking between the Experimental and the Pop, and his best bet would actually be a sound much less commercial since he really doesn’t have the vocal chops for Pop music. Could you really see Beck pulling something off like “Happy Together” or “God Only Knows”?

There is a repetitive quality to most of the individual songs, again, getting beat over the head with minimal lyrics and big choruses. As for the production of Danger Mouse; I don’t really see the appeal…other than the fact that he is very good at making drum machines sound totally broken and destroyed, unless these are actual beats that have been looped to come off as annoying as possible? I have trouble with the Rock press stating that this album is Psychedelic and very much in the style of some of the better music of the 1960’s. Personally, I am not getting that. Musically, in a lot of respects, this could be a Moby record…and that is certainly never a good thing. All of the keyboard action comes straight out of the worst of ‘80’s New Wave; just really bad. Beck giving a wordless backing vocal here and there is really rough, lord knows this isn’t Stereolab; and this is something that Beck does not do effectively. How frustrating to have a quality voice like Chan Marshall’s available of Cat Power fame, and Beck barely uses it; as this would be a better record if she simply was given more to do.

“The Soul of a Man” sounds like a much weaker variation of an obscure song Beck did many years go entitled “Big Stomping Momma”, and all he needed for that tune was a simple 4-track tape; cut and dry and to the point (and effective and interesting, lyrically enjoyable). Interestingly, I wrote a positive review of “Chemtrails” when it first appeared on the Internet; it seems that I must be a liar because I now view it as probably the most unbearable song on the album. In a lot of respects, you can get a lot of this happy ‘60’s sound elsewhere and much better; with the most obvious choice being the original source material. I feel that a lot of these songs don’t last very long because there is nowhere for them to go and nothing much to be said for them. It is like a collection of musical ideas rather than fully realized songs; a really bad EP. One of the few bright spots is the album closer “Volcano”, it is lyrically weak in places but there is a nice little melody that comes alive.

In recent interviews Beck has stated that he regrets quite a lot of what appeared on “Midnite Vultures” such as “Hollywood Freaks” for example…my question is: Why? Rich boy is playing it safe and boring me to death in the process. In a few years another album will come out; followed by quirky music videos and vague interviews in the Rock press. Sounds like an all-around bad cycle at this point…working for free might be an interesting concept; I wonder what kind of music he would make then?

Modern Guilt, Beck

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