Rolling Stone drops 5 Stars on Beck

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

http://www.rollingstone.com/recordings/rev...asp?aid=2044832

 

Sea Change comes out on Tuesday, and RS has given Beck one of their elusive five star reviews.

 

Rolling Stone is often deeply ridiculous in their reviewing standard. The only 5 star ratings they've awarded over the past year have been to Bruce Springsteen for an average album, Mick Jagger for an AWFUL album, and Bob Dylan for a good Bob Dylan album. These guys are rock luminaries, and so the five-star really isn't more than a Blow Job For a Legend, when you break it down.

 

But: Beck's certainly not even close to the same level of "legend" as these guys. RS misfires a lot, but suddenly I'm very interested in and actually excited for Sea Change.

 

Thoughts on this astounding aberration of time and space?

[Guest BionicRedneck]

Beck is a complete pile of shit, but he is liked by critics, so it doesn't really surprise me.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Just downloaded a couple of tracks. Deeply reminded of Jackson Browne's Late For The Sky with some more complex soundscapes...and that's a good thing.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Odd, Spin usually gives Beck the blowjobs.

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

[Guest godthedog]

rolling stone does it too, they said 'odelay' was the best album of 96.

 

aside from 'automatic or the people', i can't remember RS ever giving out the 5 snowflakes to an album of new material by anyone who's been around less than 20 years. they give out automatic ****+ ratings to the bands that have become institutions (nirvana, r.e.m., the stones, pearl jam, etc) but even then ***** was very very rare. this is just...weird.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Hey, Odelay OWNED, but Spin does it on a more frequent basis is what I'm saying, even trying to make excuses when he puts out something not up to par like Mutations.

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

[Guest Incandenza]

Mutations is the only Beck LP that I can listen to without being terribly bored. I've always thought him overrated.

[Guest Kinetic]

I hate Rolling Stone's retroactive rating system, wherein they do a brief re-review of an album that's gained legendary status and give it five stars. That's generally the only time they'll really get behind something like that. The Beck thing doesn't surprise me, though, since he's heavily favored by industry types for whatever reason. Remember the Album of the Year Grammy nomination for Midnite Vultures? I mean, come on. The real test, critically, will be the indie rag reviews. Either way, I'm most definitely a Beck fan so I intend on buying this Tuesday.

[Guest godthedog]

I hate Rolling Stone's retroactive rating system, wherein they do a brief re-review of an album that's gained legendary status and give it five stars. That's generally the only time they'll really get behind something like that. The Beck thing doesn't surprise me, though, since he's heavily favored by industry types for whatever reason. Remember the Album of the Year Grammy nomination for Midnite Vultures? I mean, come on. The real test, critically, will be the indie rag reviews. Either way, I'm most definitely a Beck fan so I intend on buying this Tuesday.

well...to be fair, you need some time and a sense of perspective to discern what albums/movies are TRULY great, classic, canonical works. it's just one of those things.

[Guest cynicalprofit]

RS is beck marks...and I still cant see why. Loser was the only thing of his i really liked, but after listening to it more closely, im left wonder, what the hell is this about? It makes like zero sense. I still dont get beck and probably never will. I mean he makes fine beats, but the lyrics make me wonder what hes on.

[Guest goodhelmet]

beck fucking owns but i'll be the first to admit that 'midnight vultures' was pathetic compared to 'odelay' which is one of my favorite albums! and question... why buy the album when all of the songs will be available on kazaa in the next week anyway? fuck the record companies!!!!

[Guest Incandenza]

beck fucking owns but i'll be the first to admit that 'midnight vultures' was pathetic compared to 'odelay' which is one of my favorite albums! and question... why buy the album when all of the songs will be available on kazaa in the next week anyway? fuck the record companies!!!!

I'm too much of a music fetishist to forgo CDs. And while I deplore record company price gouging, there are places in this world where you can get decently priced discs, so "fucking the record companies" eventually stops being about rebellion against corporations and becomes a person simply not wanting to pay ANY amount of money for music. I have no problem with other people being cheap, but at least be honest about it.

[Guest goodhelmet]

hey, i own over 1200 cds (do i deserve a cookie?). i know about purchasing cd's from my favorite artists and spending godly amounts of money in doing so. it's really not about being cheap although the amount of money i have saved due to audiogalaxy, napster, kazaa, wherever has been significant. if i can get it for FREE on the net then why would i feed the system now that pushes mass amounts of shit on consumers who hope to obtain more than 2 good songs per cd. hell, ALL of the cd's i have purchased in the last year have been from local artists who want their sound to be heard, not from 'insert bland new artist' here. hey, if you like to look at the pretty album covers and read the liner notes, rock on! but don't tell me it makes sense to buy the cd rather than download the songs from the net when the music is what really matters!

[Guest Incandenza]

Fine, but I'm always willing to pay for the artists I like. As for feeding the corporate machine, it's inevitable that you'll always be doing it in some form or other (unless you grow your own food, make your own clothes, etc.), but I'm sure as hell not gonna spend $20 bucks for a CD. There are cheaper places out there.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Believe it or not, a lot of the dance music and techno I like is downright impossible to find on the sharing programs. And I share Incandenza's philosophy: I will buy the albums of those I really really like. See Kylie and Radiohead(what a dichotomy!) for examples.

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

[Guest Incandenza]

I like CDs as objects. I like opening the jewel case and looking at the liner notes. I like putting a CD in the deck in my car, the way the machine seems to eat it. I like seeing the rows and rows of discs in my room. It's a tangible thing for me; it's a fetish, one shared by countless music geeks. Downloading songs online--which I have done from time to time--doesn't feel real to me.

 

By the way, unless it's a double disc or something, I will NEVER pay more than $15.99 for a CD, ever. Anything above that is criminal.

[Guest Mr. Pink]

16+ DOES sound kinda odd for a normal CD, but I'll pay it if the CD is by a band I know I can listen to for more than one song. Like The Hives. I'll never pay over Fifteen bucks for White Stripes, The Vines, Beck, and H.I.M., but I DO like all of those bands.

 

 

I don't know what I just said....what?

[Guest Kinetic]

With the advent of internet shopping, there's really no excuse for ever spending more than $15 for a single CD. If you can't find it new or used locally, you'll damn sure be able to find it on Amazon for about $15, including shipping and handling. Shit, I managed to find Source Tags & Codes used online for $10 about two weeks after it was released.

[Guest Incandenza]

16+ DOES sound kinda odd for a normal CD, but I'll pay it if the CD is by a band I know I can listen to for more than one song. Like The Hives. I'll never pay over Fifteen bucks for White Stripes, The Vines, Beck, and H.I.M., but I DO like all of those bands.

 

 

I don't know what I just said....what?

I see what you're saying. As much as I love _______, I would never pay twenty bucks for their latest, 'cuz I know I'd easily find it elsewhere for considerably less.

[Guest Kinetic]

The only place I ever see $20 CDs is at the mall, which is due to high cost of rent, I guess. There's still no excuse for it. I once spent about $60 on two DVDs at Sam Goody and felt sick about it for weeks. The only things I've purchased there since have been Lou Reed's Transformer and a couple of Radiohead singles, all for less than $10. In my experience, big all-purpose places like Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc., have pretty good prices on CDs, although their selection is usually very limited. Big entertainment stores like Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Hastings are generally reasonable in pricing things, too, although there are exceptions. If I'm buying something old, though, I'll usually check every used CD store in town and then some online places, just to make sure. Patience is a virtue when it comes to saving money on music.

[Guest Incandenza]

I usually hit Best Buy, Target, Circuit City (the one near my house kicks all kinds of ass), and Borders.

[Guest Kinetic]

The Circuit City here is crap, although I did buy my very first Elvis Costello CD there, so it holds a sort of sentimental value. I've shared the tale of the incredible Best Buy in Arlington here before, but needless to say I hope they have one in the area of NC I'm moving to. And you can definitely never discount locally owned and operated used places, as they always have some good stuff and usually employ cool people who know their shit. Not so much here, really, as the two that opened last year went out of business, but there was a great one in Manassas that gave a young Kinetic a cheap way to build his CD collection, most of which has since been discarded. McKay's Used Books and CDs representin'!

[Guest mesepher]

McKay's Used Books and CDs representin'!

oh wow man, everytime I go visit my aunt and uncle, we go there.... Lately though, their prices are increasing to about $9 per cd... which still isn't bad... although I was able to pick up a few bargains for 5 and 6 bones a piece.

 

Trading CDs in to them is a different story though.

[Guest Kinetic]

I recall not getting shit for trade-ins, although they were fairly generous with store credit. I'm glad they're still open, seeing as how they probably took a hit in business after they opened the Barnes and Noble in the same shopping center. Right next to Old Country Buffet with the Long John Silver's right in front of it. Oh, man...it's all rushing back to me.

 

I need a minute.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Old Country Buffet? Ever run into Metal Ed there?

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Some stuff I download and burn--albums from an artists back catalogue that don't impress me, for example, or highlights from. I may be a Prince junkie, but there's no way I'm going to go out and buy Lovesexy or the Black Album for the 2 or 3 brilliant singles on there. That's a download right there.

 

Downloads and burning I use for stuff I'm only kinda interested but would like to have...and a lot of times, if I burn something and really like it, I go buy it later.

 

It's definitely the music fetishist thing. I like album art. I like packaging. I like looking at my copy of My Aim Is True and having Elvis Costello's big face glaring back at me in glorious yellow and black. And if I can find a good deal, I go for it.

 

Sites I definitely recommend for bargain shoppers: cheap-cds.com and all-direct.com. Very, very low prices with decent shipping--aside from finding a good sale at a Best Buy or particular forgiving local record store, these are the best prices you'll find on the market today. They might look a little shoddy, but I've had cheap-cds orders show up in four days in perfect condition, so s'all good.

[Guest Anorak]

I've seen one very positive and one pretty negative review of the album so far, Q Magazine (the UK's glossiest & biggest selling mag) gave it 4 stars out of five and the channel four teletext page (more NME type style) gave it a rubbish 4 out of 10 score. If it really does fall quite short of "Mutations" then I'll probably not bother getting it.

[Guest godthedog]

i downloaded all the songs but one, and it's just beck being somber. his "little bit of this, little bit of that" approach works great when he's just having fun, but not nearly as well with a downer record.

 

good, but not great.

[Guest Incandenza]

The Circuit City here is crap, although I did buy my very first Elvis Costello CD there, so it holds a sort of sentimental value. I've shared the tale of the incredible Best Buy in Arlington here before, but needless to say I hope they have one in the area of NC I'm moving to. And you can definitely never discount locally owned and operated used places, as they always have some good stuff and usually employ cool people who know their shit. Not so much here, really, as the two that opened last year went out of business, but there was a great one in Manassas that gave a young Kinetic a cheap way to build his CD collection, most of which has since been discarded. McKay's Used Books and CDs representin'!

The quality of Circuit City's CD collection varies. As I said, the one near my place rivals Best Buy in terms of collection (I bought a Beulah album there,so they have some cool shit), but the other CC in town is terrible.

[Guest Kinetic]

It's a sick, sad world when the biggest music publication in America gives this album a better rating than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I've listened to it twice now and it escapes me entirely how this could warrant a perfect rating. I'm a fan of Nigel Godrich's work with Radiohead, but this production is all wrong for the style of album that Beck very deliberately set out to make. It's should be a lot more organic, rather than spacey--which seems to be the only type of production Godrich can apply, actually. Plus, Beck's many shortcomings as a lyricist are exposed here as he's trying to be serious. There are, quite literally, no good lines to be found. Maybe it's a grower.