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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

Good News For People Who Love Bad News
by Modest Mouse


8.8

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 130 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album

Official Artist Site

Produced by Dennis Herring (Camper Van Beethoven), the latest release from the Seattle-based indie rockers sees a return of guitarist Dann Gallucci (last with the band on Sad Sappy Sucker) and a new drummer (Benjamin Weikel) as well as a guest spot from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

LABEL:	Sony
RELEASE DATE:	06 April 2004
DISCS:	1 disc
GENRE(S):	Indie, Rock

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Tiny Mix Tapes

Ultimately, what makes Good News so successful is that it retains the melancholy mood of past works, while at the same time adding depth and maturity.

100

Spin

Half expansive, burnished radio-rock, half swampy Delta hoodoo-hollerin' that reeks of Brock's Southern sojourn. [May 2004, p.103]

Filter

It's passionate. It's thoughtful. It's catchy. It's their breakout moment, their best record, and... it will be one of the best albums of 2004.[#9, p.100]

Village Voice (Consumer Guide)

Weathered now, their herky-jerk stands up smartly to interjections from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

Logo

Never happily slotting into any template demanded back in their home town, MM are nearer to some wondrous mish-mash of Pavement and Beck; closer in harmony to The Flaming Lips.

The New York Times

The best Modest Mouse album yet.

Billboard

A daring yet accessible disc.

All Music Guide

Even though this album isn't as immediately or showily brilliant as The Moon & Antarctica, Good News for People Who Love Bad News reveals itself as just as strong a statement.

New Musical Express

A real-life pop record. Well, not pop in the Girls Aloud sense of the word obviously, more in the drop-dead, fuzz-box brilliant 'Here Comes Your Man' sense. [10 Jul 2004, p.48]

PopMatters

Review 1: Unequivocally great, a logical progression in style and scope. [score=90]; Review 2: A record that manages to balance a swarm of new ideas with their most steadfast and well-loved tricks. [score=80]

E! Online

If there's a touchstone band for this album, it's Little Creatures-era Talking Heads cranking out songs that are joyously eccentric, celebratory and catchy.

Entertainment Weekly

[A] Tom Waits-ian reinvention. [9 Apr 2004, p.84]

Rolling Stone

On the group's fourth proper album, a mightier Mouse refine their weirdness and become a pop band while grasping at dark truths that pop ordinarily denies.

Neumu.net

While the album is not as cohesive a vision, many of its songs are more focused.

The Onion (A.V. Club)

The songs still rely on Brock's echoing guitar patterns and Mobius-strip lyrics, delivered in the voice of a harried, hip-hop-inflected square-dance caller, but though the vehicle stays the same, the scenery outside the window changes considerably.

Delusions of Adequacy

The Mouse is back, just as polished and schizo as it ever was.

Junkmedia

This is a great band's most fully realized and mature album in a career already dotted with highpoints.

Mojo

Moments of simple, exultant joy are plentiful. [Jun 2004, p.102]

ShakingThrough.net

Good News could well be looked back on as the band's rite of passage, filled with energetic but reckless noisemakers and more studied, stylistically adventurous tracks.

Dusted Magazine

This is a more varied album than The Moon and Antarctica (which did seem to have only one speed), and with the return of original member Dan Gallucci, Brock appears to have revived the heavy lead guitar playing of their early work.

Alternative Press

If Good News... isn't the pillar-like masterpiece Modest Mouse fans have waited years for, it's proof that things haven't completely fallen apart. [May 2004, p.92]

Q Magazine

45 bonkers minutes. [Jun 2004, p.103]

Playlouder

It just feels that amidst his bare and heartfelt explorations of life and the old wooden box wherein we all end up, Brock has learned to dance, learned to allow himself a smile.

Pitchfork

For all its transcendent moments, Good News ultimately fails to hold together all that well as an album.

Austin Chronicle

No bad news here, just more headline-making from an innovative, ever-maturing group of musicians.

Almost Cool

Probably the biggest complaint could be that the group has tightened up their sound even more on this release, leaving behind even more of the roughshod qualities that made their earlier discs blister with such energy.

Dot Music

At these transcending moments, "Good News...". is elevated into excellence. But overall, there is too much Mouse that bores and not enough Mouse that roars.

The Guardian

A useful addition to a genre that prizes brain over brawn.

Nude As The News

A lot of major label-imposed ideas, like rhythm guitar and a heartbreakingly conventional new bass sound, combine to utterly ruin the record's first half. If you can make it through to News' innards, however, an EP's worth of something like better-recorded, more thought-out Lonesome Crowded West material awaits.

Blender

[Brock is] adept at wringing out emotion while straddling sentimentality, but too often here, gauche studio affectations make his sap sound plain cheap. [Apr 2004, p.134]

Stylus Magazine

Gone is pretty much everything they’ve learned in the last eight years or so, ditching all the progress they’ve made in favor of just making another Modest Mouse record. The results, needless to say, are disappointing.

Uncut

There are some pleasantly elaborate, wayward songs here... Forays into funk and Tom Waits' scrapyard are cringe-inducing, though. [Sep 2004, p.110]

The average user rating for this album is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 130 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Adrian C. gave it a10:
A beautifully compiled piece of art.

Mike L gave it a10:
Not just their best album, best album of the year. There's a saying that music should never be safe, and that's exactly how I'd describe this album. There's something kind of chaotic and violent about it, with Brock singing like a madman over a propulsive, occasionally lurching rhythm, and guitars that kind of dig out these melodic but hard-edged lines. A classic.

Clay T gave it a9:
This was the first modest mouse cd I'd ever heard. Quite simply it is the gateway drug to all things modest mouse. One of the best albums (if not the best) that I have ever come across.

yes. gave it a10:
The Moon And Antarctica's crazy cousin. Awesome, awesome album.

Mihai V gave it an8:
It's hard to take this band seriously. They seem to think that life is just a big joke. That's both their strenght and weakness. There is no message here, tbis album won't change your life, yet it's fun, inventine, and has it's own kind of unity.

Jonathan Z gave it an8:
Why does it always have to be "crap or masterpiece"? This album is very good, indeed, but there are some weaker songs, too, especially towards the end.

Kenneth S gave it a10:
One of the best albums I've heard. Even the songs that are more difficult listens reveal their elegance within only a couple of times through. Modest Mouse is, plainly and simply, the only band right now doing anything truly original, yet it isn't stilted. They are a band with talent, skill, and vision--things difficult to come by. This is an album to listen to from start to finish. It carries you through with enough beautiful melodies, like from "The View," in between that you don't become overly anxious or frustrated. If anyone says to me that no one makes decent music these days, one of the first places I'll point them to is this album, a true marvel of the last ten years.

Good News For People Who Love Bad News by Modest Mouse

Good News For People Who Love Bad News
by Modest Mouse