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Written by Mark Reed
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Monday, 14 July 2008
good just isn't good enough.
Being Beck means being one of the ultimate modern cyphers. His lyrics are meaningless, rhyming piffle. His voice is a barely bothered exclamation. Musically, whilst Beck changes with the wind, ever moving forward to create new and interesting textures, ultimately, every Beck album reveals that whilst Beck moves between styles and sounds with great fluency, almost every Beck song sounds roughly the same.
Produced by Dangermouse, "Modern Guilt" is also, like REM's "Accelerate" a slight experience. It's over in 34 minutes, and even manages to omit the rather brilliant MP3-single "Timebombs". Though, I'm fairly sure that "Timebombs" isn't actually about "Timebombs", and Beck titles are mostly now like New Order songs, having very little to do with the songs themselves : I can't tell what any of these songs are about. Sure, the songs are memorable, but production wise they start to turn into one, long, 10 part song instead of songs having their own separate identity. Within the album itself, moods never move beyond a fairly stable emotional baseline, neither of highs nor lows : as if the album is a representation of a mood flattener like Prozac. "Chemtrails" is a great song, albeit one that is nearly neutered of personality. "Modern Guilt" is a good, not a great record, with no distinct personality of its own, and in this day and age, where thousands of records are released every year, good just isn't good enough. Why be good.. When you can be great?Only registered users can write comments.
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