Currently Listening: Beck's "Modern Guilt"
Enter Mr. Beck Hanson. One of my favorite recording artists, Beck consistently gives me some of my favorite music, such as his songs "Devil's Haircut", "Sexx Laws", "Paper Tiger", "Rental Car", and "Strange Apparition". His new album dropped on Tuesday, and I immediately pounced on it. Produced by Danger Mouse of Gnarls Barkley and The Grey Album fame (and who coincidentally produced one of my favorite albums of 2007, The Good, the Bad, and the Queen), Modern Guilt is an album that doesn't present any shockingly revolutionary material, as Beck has become known for. Rather, it feels like a Beck album. I think that's a good thing. I like the sound of his last two albums, and I don't mind having those themes explored more. Others, however, tend to disagree. I realize that this album has received less-than-stellar reviews. One reviewer wrote that Beck is "dropping down a rabbit hole of psychedelic noisemakers." Another wrote that the album "sounds like an obligation. It sounds like Beck has disengaged from his music." I could not disagree more. If anything, he seems to be delving deeper into his own music. There is undoubtedly a darker tone to the music, but unlike the very dark Sea Change, Modern Guilt has a dark, paranoid quality that makes for very interesting and exciting music for me.
My only complain is that it is WAY too short. 10 tracks, 34 minutes. Granted, it's an awesome and trippy 34 minutes, but just as you are grooving and "dropping down the rabbit hole", it's over. Whatever. I'll just put it on repeat and keep listening. I wonder how it will sound on Friday on my new iPhone?
Favorite tracks: Gamma Rays, Chemtrails (which VERY appropriately has been compared to Caribou), Volcano
