Beck’s Melancholy “Guilt” | Toxic Nostalgia
Posted Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:01am PDT by Cory Frye in GetBack
I've listened to the new Beck six times now, and I'm still not sure how I feel. On one hand, I love it more than The Information (2006) or Guero (2005), that pale-faced shadow of Odelay (1996). On the other, I'm trying to glean the mood and not project too many of my own fears into this wrongheaded analysis, which I'm gonna do anyway
Much has been made of Modern Guilt's marketing: the album was released on the artist's 38th birthday, and, wow, really, someone like Beck can actually turn 38? Naturally, it's been called his midlife/mid-career statement, perhaps a wistful postcard to an address no longer extant. That last youthful drag before the dreaded 4-0, which, biologically, is a meaningless age. But by cultural standards, Beck is old, old, old. Do the depressing math: as far as most high school seniors know, Beck has always been famous, "always" being the breadth of their lives. As someone of Beck's generation, I find it difficult to regard him as "old," or even imagine that anyone would see him as such. I mean, didn't this trip just begin only a few short years ago? Hello?
The '90s - that era of Mellow Gold, "Loser's" droll shrugged shoulder (a novelty zeitgeist/kitschy dada appendage he'll never shake loose), Mutations, Odelay, and Midnite Vultures - are over. For how the world turned out, they may as well have never happened. Nobody misses them, anyway. In fact, there's a New Truth now, aggressively stated, that the '90s were awful. Loud emptiness and gnarly phoniness under a surface DIY spit-shine, and anyone who feels differently is a fool. The '80s? Oh, those were brilliant. Nine milquetoast years of mediocrity and tedium with a pair of old-boy boobs (curiously benign by today's standards) in the White House and Asti Spumante armies of trust-fund yobbos running wild in the streets. The discouragement of individual thought was an added bonus. Oh, and Big Country were awesome.
But the '90s? Don't remind me: economic prosperity, indie visibility, ecological sensitivity, a President as actual statesman, the total crossover of hip-hop, the promise of hope - the horror, the horror. I'm not saying they were great (thanks, Newt), but can anyone honestly say the last eight years were an improvement?
Ah, well - tis the scattered, wounded mewling of a man (me, not Beck) facing his first philosophical brush with mortality, that moment one realizes his past has passed, its events, its heroes, its principles no longer relevant to the here and now, no longer regarded as having ever been important. Besides, it's 2 a.m., that witching hour when nostalgia is loudest.
Beck is old. Kevin Smith is old. John Cusack. Dre, Cube. Snoop. Liz Phair is old, and the people who rummaged through every switchblade syllable of Exile In Guyville back in '93 laugh at what she's become. My friends are old. Therefore, I am old. Kurt Cobain's been underground longer than I care to think about. He's the new Morrison, pixie-vapor for another generation, dusted library bones upon which to dine. Same with Tupac. Biggie too. No longer people, but ideas. And y'know what's really messed up? I only kinda sorta remember them ever being around. None of it matters anyway. Ancient history. Sociological theses. No one today can sit with copies of All Eyez On Me or Ready To Die and hear them as the works of living men. When Pac sings of G Heaven, he speaks forever from the Great Beyond.
I don't know why such thoughts occur to me during Modern Guilt. All I could dwell on was loss, of people, times, and places, wondering where and how it all unraveled. The album has a melancholy that's not as boldly naked as on Sea Change (2002), but just as potent, maybe a little more resigned. Sometimes you can feel the frost in Beck's breath as he mumbles his esoteric riddles of glacial gloom, often sighing over himself ("Gamma Ray") like a distant jet bound for anywhere but here.
He's abetted on his mission by co-producer Danger Mouse (the man who smacked brains with Cee-Lo and birthed the awesome Gnarls Barkley), whose influence is obtrusive enough to be unobtrusive. It's a language-fusion sublime, as Guilt's sonic retro dustbowl wearily occupies a modern world it no longer recognizes or understands. "Think I'm stranded but I don't know where," Beck sings on "Orphans." I think I know exactly what he means.
-Cory Frye
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