I thought I'd check out the latest album since it won the Grammys and is on offer at iTunes.

Wow. I saw him live a while back and it was one of the best gigs I've ever seen: full of energy and invention. He always seemed to have something weird and wonderful up his sleeve in those days. But from the samples I've heard, Morning Phase is wall-to-wall soft-rock ballads. Where's all the excitement gone? and why?

beck is a bit like neil young in that sometimes he does accoustic stuff, and sometimes he does something more energetic. beck's been doing that for years and even had an accoustic tour where he was the only one on stage, playing either guitar or piano, and that show was as great and interesting as his other shows. i like his accoustic stuff as well as his other stuff. few artists try different things these days

Sea Change was also a slow, rather dull (IMO) one. However Guero, Odelay and Midnite Vultures are three of my favourites.

I think the general point being made is it's not bland because it's acoustic, it's bland because it's bland

I agree with the OP, this is one of Beck's worst records. It's no surprise it took home the grammy really, the whole event is a snoozefest designed largely to stroke the egos of established artists who really don't need any kind of leg up.

I remember making a thread about a year ago about his whereabouts as I remember him being quite a substantial artist in the the late 90's and early noughties. People posted saying that he was still performing and making music. I always recall that his videos were very creative and always being shown on MTV2. They would always make the 100 Greatest Videos being made.

There were quite a few articles in the likes of Select and Vox magazine around 96 and 97 where he was basically seen as the future of music - whether its been 'bad' since is probably ott imo, but I dont think his career has followed the direction these journos expected.

The fact that he's Scientologist hurt his image.

why? i don't think anyone cares about that. few people probably know anyway. it doesn't exactly hurt the careers of tom cruise, will smith and john travolta (apart from the obvious awful movie about scientology) does it?

In his defence, he's been around for over 20 years now, and there's few artists that could be said to be producing consistently top notch work over that period of time.


He has had some wonderful music videos. I really like the one for 'Jackass'. Simple yet effective.


Perhaps not with regards to his own career, but Odelay had a huge impact on American indie music. It was a pretty good call by those journos, as that record remains highly influential.

Morning Phase is a grower. It took me a few listens on Spotify for it to kick in with me.

I love a lot of indie music, but I could never get into Beck. His music is just odd, but not in a cool way like Bjork. It's not rock, it's not electronic, what is it? It's just bland and weird to me.

Um... Yes it did for a while. John Travolta a hell of a lot.

I'd love a laugh so please provide some proof of this