Modern Guilt

Has some great songs. Love tracks 4, 5, and 6. I've had this CD on rotation in my car since it came out. Just don't get tired of it. Highly recommend getting the whole cd, rather than buying individual songs.

On his latest album, Modern Guilt, Beck returns to a more up-tempo affair. Well, an exception to the rule is the last track, "Volcano." Anyway, this is the most enjoyable Beck cd since Sea Changes, musically speaking. In some ways, it's even better, because it rocks. Sometimes it even sounds like someone is actually playing a drum kit rather than recording with electronic drums, which is something I always prefer hearing. "Volcano" sounds more like an outtake from Sea Changes minus a strumming acoustic guitar perhaps. It is the only track on Modern Guilt that doesn't seem like it belongs. However, every album needs to have at least one ballad, so to speak, on it. To be fair, Modern Guilt could have had one or two more slow numbers on it for balance, but the cd rocked so much, and the album was so short that there wasn't enough time to worry about an equal mix. If anybody wants to hear Beck play truly beautiful folk-rock numbers, they should try Sea Change. Modern Guilt and Sea Change are essentially the opposite of each other, both in form and tempo, but I think they are two of Beck's best!

Inside the album you get a coupon to download high quality MP3's. Beck is the man! I can't wait to see him play at the Hollywood Bowl. The album is a classic.

I'm a recently converted vinyl enthusiast, and I was psyched to the new Beck release on vinyl. One of the really cool features, I thought, was that by purchasing the vinyl you get a code to download the digital version of the record. Well the coupon that was enclosed in the record was code-less. Extremely disappointing. The record is quite good though.

I concur with previous reviewers that the first four or five songs are just some of the craftiest songwriting out there, though my favorite tune is edging toward "Profanity Prayers". I bought on the thought that others described it "like The Information" but I don't think it really is. Just like any Beck album, very hard to categorize, compare with/to, which is a true virtue of an artist who endures. This just has confidence througout - there's not a lot of "look at me" riffs or beeps or fizzles or what have you here (like "In Rainbows", for example - the band doesn't feel a need to overwhelm with crazy sound, but simply make pure music and truly reflect who they are), but the beats are catchy, the lyrics deliver the usual mind-twisting precision and there's an undercurrent of optimism here, perhaps throwing a few shovel-fuls of dirt on the Sea Change downer... Yeah, it could be 3 tracks longer, but The Information had about 3 too many tracks. I appreciate the self-editing. A great soundtrack for just about anything... ET