| Product Summary | | Label: Universal Music Group | | UPC: 00602517754416 | | Release Date: 7/8/2008 | | Buy.com Sku: 208105526 | | Item#: M46EQG | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 25530 | Format:  CD |
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(P) 2008 DGC Records
(C) 2008 DGC Records
| The new album contains 10 new songs, and with the exception of last year's Grammy-nominated, digital-only single "Timebomb", Modern Guilt is the first new material Beck has written since the prolific stretch that produced 2005's platinum Guero and 2006's universally acclaimed The Information.
Modern Guilt is a tightly assembled group of songs that range in lyrical tone from introspection and social commentary to off the cuff wordplay and lighthearted humor. Musically, the album's ten tracks vacillate between economy and experimentation, hybrid and pop classicism, while consistently manifesting Beck and Danger Mouse's shared interest in psych-rock, folk, electronic minimalism and orchestration.
Beck is about to embark on a tour of the UK and Europe, followed by a number of US headline and festival appearances, culminating in Beck's biggest hometown headline show to date, September 20, 2008 at the Hollywood Bowl.
"...a tightly-written 10 songs that in part seem to focus on what, precisely, we have done to the world..." Dot Music
"...[Beck]'s never found a sound quite as consistent or compelling as the one Danger Mouse dials in here." Hartford Courant
"...Beck's darkest record to date, one that captures the uncertainty of 2008 as well as "Mellow Gold" distilled apathy in 1994." Paste Magazine
"...Beck is finally fun again, and you suspect the person most surprised by how well Modern Guilt turned out is the guy who made it." Uncut
"Modern Guilt adds Danger Mouse and Cat Power to Beck's roster of collaborators, with spectacular results." Under The Radar
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | Personnel: Beck (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, flute, percussion); Chan Marshall (vocals); Jason Falkner (guitar, bass guitar); Larry Corbett (cello); Greg Kurstin (piano, organ, synthesizer); Danger Mouse (synthesizer, keyboard bass, programming); Brian Lebarton (synthesizer); Matt Mahaffey (bass guitar); Joey Waronker (drums); Drew Brown. | | Audio Mixer: Darrell Thorp. | | Recording information: Anonyme Studios, Los Angeles, CA. | | Photographer: Drew Brown. | | In the early days of his career, after every relatively mainstream major-label album (MELLOW GOLD, ODELAY), Beck would then release a more experimental indie disc such as the lo-fi ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE or the knotty STEREOPATHETIC SOULMANURE. Similarly, Beck has been fond of stylistic experiments such as the Brazilian-influenced MUTATIONS and the warped R&B of MIDNITE VULTURES. As he's matured as an artist, these smaller-scale releases and genre exercises have fallen somewhat off the radar, but the quickly recorded and loose-limbed MODERN GUILT recalls the feeling of those rough-edged earlier records. Paradoxically, it may also be his most immediately accessible and pop-oriented album ever. A stripped-down collaboration with Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton of Gnarls Barkley fame, MODERN GUILT is rooted in 1960s pop, from the British Invasion vibe of the bouncy "Gamma Ray" to the woozy psychedelia of "Chemtrails." Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) also provides guest vocals on two songs, "Orphans" and "Walls." MODERN GUILT is available as a digital download, a standard CD, and a vinyl LP. |
Producer: Danger Mouse; Danger Mouse; Drew Brown |
Engineer: Darrell Thorp; Drew Brown; Drew Brown |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | Beck - Modern Guilt - CD Review By: carney - Blogcritics.org Reviews Published on: 11/11/2008 2:04 PM | | So how does Modern Guilt distinguish itself from a very impressive body of work? Beck played a personnel game of cat and mouse, enlisting help on a pair of tracks from soft-voiced piano chanteuse Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall), and hiring on DJ Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton, best known as the brains behind the beats of Gnarls Barkley) as producer. The two bring differing touches to the album and united by Beck, they consummate a unique marriage....read the full review |
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| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 07/08/2008 | | Original Release Date : 2008 | | Catalog ID : 001150702 | | Label : Interscope Records (USA) | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00602517754416 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | Rolling Stone (p.89)
- Ranked #8 in Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums Of 2008 -- "MODERN GUILT has plenty of electricity and playful funk..."Spin (p.102)
- 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[E]eerily soulful psychedelic rock, as focused as it is trippy, with the meditative nuance of 2002's SEA CHANGE." Spin (p.50)
- Ranked #15 in Spin's "40 Best Albums Of 2008" -- "[T]he baby-faced boundary-buster delivered a spooky dose of downer psych." Q (Magazine)
(p.134)
- 4 stars out of 5 -- "Happily, the concise MODERN GUILT is a return to form....Always a musical magpie, here it's prog and pscychedelia that have caught Beck's eye." Mojo (Publisher)
(p.104)
- 4 stars out of 5 -- "MODERN GUILT is a record of adult confusion and world-worn sensuality, crafted into colour-saturated, three-minute frames. Wisdom and wonder align in the same package." Mojo (Publisher)
(p.72)
- Ranked #19 in Mojo's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2008" -- "MODERN GUILT proved Beck still had the ZEITGEIST on speed-dial." Blender (Magazine)
(p.82)
- 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "MODERN GUILT mixes ancient rock -- mainly the incense-and-peppermints-flavored '60s psychedelia of REVOLVER-era Beatles, the Zombies and Pink Floyd -- with the woozy, abstract beats Danger Mouse manages to turn into freaked-out fun." The Phoenix 10 of 10
Ever since his 2002 confessional, Sea Change, Beck's music has been less absurd and more obliquely melancholic, the sound of pop art confronting itself. On Modern Guilt, his eighth major-label record, Beck and co-producer Danger Mouse craft a subversive summer album that pits narratives of spiritual and existential longing against noise-encrusted beats and dusty old-pop architecture. It's music for summer nights of muggy confusion and post-sunset soul searching, and when Beck takes the mic, he rocks some straight-up Shiva s***: "To be loved or destroyed/From a void to a grain of sand in your hand." Beck and Danger Mouse -- whose ubiquity is quickly turning him into the alt-Timbaland -- handle most of the album's instrumentation, from the spy guitar that drives "Gamma Ray" to the infectious Doors-ian saloon hop of the title track. Meanwhile, "Chemtrails," the only song with a live band, salvages the wreck of late-'60s head-psych, all waterlogged and reanimated, with a hazy shade of Pink Floyd pomp. Beck's falsetto goes glassy-eyed under the spell of Joey Waronker's drums and Jason Falkner's bass -- torrential reckonings of retro allusion. Modern Guilt is a hot thing of indefinite course, and perhaps, as Beck sings in "Volcano," an attempt to "make it back into the womb of the world" -- not so much to beat the heat, but to become one with it. - Zeth Lundy
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