The 50 Best Albums of 2008

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Beck MODERN GUILT DGC

"We do the best with the souls we've been given," Beck sings in this deft balance of son-of-Odelay bricolage and the confessional charge of his 2002 ghost-folk beauty Sea Change. Modern Guilt has plenty of electricity and playful funk — the go-go guitars in "Gamma Ray," the rubbery-Kraftwerk gait of "Youthless" — but not so much that you can't hear the blues moralist and psychedelic seeker inside. Beck's acoustic guitar drives the midnight-at-the-crossroads "Soul of a Man," while his high-tenor voice hangs in the inky Doors-like church of "Chemtrails" like a worried ghost.

• View List: The 50 Best Albums of 2008
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