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As musically dazzling as Midnite Vultures often is, the one criticism that can be still levelled at Beck is that his songs remain strangely soulless, failing to ever really grip the emotions or stir the soul.
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He's given us the year's most relentless gas--laughing or otherwise--of a party album.
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It's pretty much just a silly, goofy, fun record.
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Musically, Midnite Vultures is filled with wonderful little quirks, but these are undercut by the sneaking suspicion that for all the ingenuity, it's just a hipster joke.
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Narrower in scope than 'Odelay' but more immediate in impact, it's clearly been conceived as an accompaniment to our hedonistic habit of choice, the last great party album of the millennium.
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Unlike Odelay, the mix-and-match pastiche of Midnite Vultures doesn't show its seams.
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After the acerbic, introspective detour of Mutations, Mr. Hansen has decided it's time to get his freak on.
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Midnite Vultues kind of sounds like an album Prince would have made if he were more interested in being a geek than carressing his own ego.
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Beck's best when he's tweaking music he has a genuine interest in, giving new humor and affection to his nasty grooves.
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For all Beck lifts from the Seventies, the album never sounds like a period piece; there's always something extra in the mix, stray elements that are both goofy and strangely apropos.
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It's a pastiche festival that works in the interest of groove every bit as hard as it does for knowingness and yuks.
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His most consistent and playful album yet.
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An entertainingly excessive album, its libidinous funk mosaic finds Beck coming on like a master of ceremonies overseeing a sci-fi orgy.
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From start to finish, "Midnite Vultures" is a total party romp of an album.
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He's got the beat rate up and lots of faux funk happening.
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Midnite Vultures is the album of a great entertainer, not a great artist.
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The startling musical variety amplifies the fact that no matter how aloof, how diffident, how cartoon Beck might be, he's so extravagantly talented that he's already lapped everyone else on that strength alone.
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Think of this sultry record as the night to Odelay's day.
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This album's not a joke. It's too damn good.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 60 out of 66
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Mixed: 2 out of 66
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Negative: 4 out of 66
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Sep 5, 2010
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Jan 22, 2012This album is full of ..... awesomeness
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Jul 17, 2018