After 3 albums of totally interchangable, candy-shell whatevers
(Guerro/Info/Guilt), Morning Phase was a welcome slice of pretty. But
even then, it wasn't _that far from Mutations / Sea Change - certainly
nothing to put him back in that run of constant reinvention that was
Mellow/Odelay/Mutations/Midnite.
But there was ample
cause for hope heading into this new one! 10 minute versions of
Defriended and I Won't Be Long, not to mention a fucking _killer 20-minute
Phillip Glass tribute, showed that Beck had still the ambition and the
talent to make something memorable.
And then the lead singles! Wow and Dreams were full of promise, pop songs bent beyond the familiar.
But
what we got was basically the 4th entry in his forgettable-era catalog.
Outside of those two singles, only the opening title track brings any
of the wobbly invention.
Everything else feels like it could have come out of one of those so-hot-now neural network projects.
Someone Taught an AI to Make Beck Songs and the Results Will Blow Your Mind.
I
mean, they're catchy, but in a late-era Weezer kinda way, no sense that
Beck means a lick of it, and no sense that he's doing anything artfully
from the outside. They're just pop songs, and unconvincing ones. They're packed with lines about how I'm So Free now, without
sounding the least bit free; about my Seventh Heaven, without the barest
hint of happiness; staying Up All Night, but maybe because you had a cup of coffee too late in your workday.
A deeply
disappointing album. Beck can make good songs, he just doesn't seem to
have the nerve to make an album's worth anymore. Another nail in the
coffin of his legacy 3/5
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Dude, Guero is good!
ReplyDeleteGuerro is good, I guess, but I posit that if Modern Guilt or The Information came out first that one would be the good one. You could put those 3 albums on shuffle and not even notice. Nothing on that album is as good as the worst song on Odelay, and the chaff is completely forgettable
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