Rocking toward oblivion.
Beck’s tenth album Modern Guilt was released the same week of the G-8 Summit in Japan. Normally, these two events would have nothing to do with each other but the album’s lyrical themes of worldwide paranoia and planetary abuse make it the perfect soundtrack for a meeting to discuss global warming. As the title suggests, Beck is worried. Every song deals in some way with the future of the planet but the production by Danger Mouse (Beck’s third high profile producer in a row) allows the instrumentation to tempt you dance all the way to the end of the world.
The album’s consistency is comparable to his masterpiece Sea Change, but with Danger Mouse’s bass-heavy beats substituting for the airy acoustics of that 2002 release. And while that album was about a painful break up, this is about a more apocalyptic end. The ominous messages are hard to ignore as this sampling of lyrics from each song illustrates; “orphans in a tidal wave’s wake””, “icecaps melting down with the transistor sound”, “we die in the slipstream we’ll climb in a hole in the sky”, “Don’t know what I’ve done, but I feel afraid”, “a million horses dragging down the monolith”, “warheads stacked in the kitchen”, “tape it up against the howling wind”, “coming home like a letter bomb”, “a government loan with a guillotine in your libido” and “I can’t tell if it’s you or me who’s driving us into the ground.” Woo hoo! Let’s party!
Beck’s guitar work is fused with the rhythm section and wash of psychedelic synthesizers and the layering of his droning vocals creates a Sixties meets 21st century vibe, a futuristic wall of sound. A future that might benefit from songs like these being uploaded to the G-8 Summit leader’s i-pods.
Listen for songs from the album Modern Guilt by Beck all this week on Paul Shugrue’s new music show “Out of the Box” on Hampton Roads public radio 89.5 WHRV Mon. through Thurs. from 7 to 9 p.m., Sat. afternoon from 1 to 5 p.m. and on-demand at www.whrv.org/outofthebox.