This is right up there with the worst albums I have ever heard! With the ever-so-slight exception of Eternal Life, this is nothing but sheer auditory abuse!
I'm not entirely sure why he's imitating a bag of drowning cats because legend will have you believe that Jeff can actually sing, and pretty well too; this is definitely not proof of that. If you take away the god awful vocals there may be a hint of somewhat enjoyable music left as there is some nice guitar and drum work in there, otherwise, I'd rather two well hung men violently penetrate my ears than hear this again!
Definitely worth a listen.
Well, it's David Bowie so it's already at a loss! He was a better actor than a musician and he was a shite actor.
While this album isn't 'terrible' as the songs are well structured, they have a good feel and sound to them, unfortunately, you still have to hear David Bowie try and sing.
Fantastic album from start to finish, just straight up good music with a rollercoaster of sounds and feelings starting off just above mid-level, rising up to peak and then gradually coming back down with some fast bumps finally tailing off with a bit more subtlety and delicacy.
Full of great hits and not a single bad song among them; this is an album that almost anyone can listen to in some sort of capacity and not really have anything negative to say about it other than a song or two has probably been overplayed when it came out but those were certainly deservedly overplayed.
Not sure what this is trying to be but it's not Electronic; it's not Ambient; it's not Jazz; nor is it House, it doesn't fit in the Downtempo category either as much as it seems to try and it isn't 'elevator music' either (too much going on for that) and it certainly isn't Avant-garde or even Samba either. It tries to be all of these styles and more, failing distressingly to the very end.
Track #5: Antropofagos almost came close to being something of worth until a three year old was let loose with a $5 violin (I'm unsure if it's synthesized because the intonation is completely off which leads me to believe it's a human playing it), the whole song went downhill drastically after that point.
Track #7: Um Dia Comum is the perfect example of throwing shit at the wall but including the parts that didn't stick. This is just little snippets of ideas that would be worth listening to if they had been developed further, instead they're just looped and forgotten about.
Track #8: Sereia is another example of an under-developed (or maybe over-engineered?) song. Remove the terrible synth overlay or at best lower its presence through the track, and you could potentially have a great drum and bass track as these are the only two elements that actually work here.
Overall a very insipid and wearisome album with very same-y repetitive sounds, uninteresting rhythms and terrible off-key Jazz style vocals. Plenty of tracks make you wish that something interesting would happen, sadly they never do, making this a very difficult listen.
tl;dr Avoid like the plague.
This couldn't be a more generic, cookie-cutter album if it tried; pull any random stranger off the street and give them 24 hours to make an album, guaranteed it'll turn out 100% better than this.
Terrible voice that's auto-tuned out the wazoo make this unenjoyable at best, it's completely uninteresting musically so it's really just pointless noise that you can't wait to turn off.
I'm sure someone enjoys this but really I just feel sorry for them.
I've heard and read people say that Beck was a master of all styles, however, to say that this shows Beck as a 'Jack of all styles and master of none' is an insult to the term 'Jack'.
I'm sure Beck has put out much better work as this is in no way a 'must listen'! Odelay has a couple of songs on it, whether they're good or not is entirely up for debate, I don't know what to call the rest of the album other that a varied collection of rather suspect and random sounds.
I have heard much worse though.
12 pieces of music that sound absolutely beautiful, likely played by world-class musicians and some asshat comes along and drowns it all out by 'singing' making every song sound exactly the same; no thank you.
