What The Hell Am I Listening to?!?
The theme for this installment of What The Hell is seasoned veterans changing up their approach and putting out interesting and a bit underrated albums:
Beck (Los Angeles, CA)
When I think about where Beck is in his career, parallels to Neil Young come to mind for me. All the way back to the beginning through his catalogue, he has conquered tons of genres, amassed endless accolades, and made some super classic songs, and now while people think his best is behind him, he can go in whatever direction he wants free other people’s expectations. After his not-so-triumphant return to “old-school Beck” on Guero being his most dissappointing release to date, pretty much everyone still riding the “Loser” bandwagon had jumped off. The downside of that is that most people didn’t really pay attention to the spectacular The Information from 2 years ago, but I think maybe the lowered expectations helped take the pressure off to do some really interesting songwriting. Where Guero seemed so shallow and empty, just about trying to catch the listener with up-beat hooks, the two most recent Beck releases seem aimed at a deeper and more nuanced listen. Modern Guilt sees Danger Mouse take over the production duties this time (instead of the Dust Brothers or Nigel Godrich who have been trading off duties since Odelay), and the result is exactly what you would expect from this pairing, an album enjoyable to dance to or listen to by yourself in your headphones. While this isn’t the epic piece The Information was, the less than 34 minutes experience seems perfect for the upper music/downer lyrics dichotomy exploration he embarks on here. If you come to this album looking for some sort of Beck you want or expect, you might be disappointed, but take it for it is, and it’s a pretty damn good album.
Beck : Youthless
Sigur Ros (Reykjavik, Iceland)
Sigur Ros‘s newest full-length sees the band attempting to shake up a formula that has yielded some seriously stunning results in the past without steering too far away from their characteristic sound. This is of course a problematic area to be in when you are a band like Sigur Ros (sort of the same place The Mars Volta is in right now); Do you keep on doing the same thing that works over your entire career and people attack your for being one-dimensional, or do you risk your fanbase and go in a starkly different direction? Sigur Ros have choose a middle road with an album that sounds very different and very much like their previous work at the same time (and of course many critics have hated on this choice as well). They used an outside producer for the first time, recorded the album in different cities across the globe, and shortened the studio time to throw them out of their comfort zone. The finished product is a fairly schizophrenic piece that bounces around much more lightly and upbeat at times than their previous stuff, but remains soft and pretty at other times and still contains a familiar taste of the grand and sublime.
Buy Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust here
- Posted by Davy Minor on August 3, 2008 at 7:32 pm
