the most recent beck album, "sea change," has the best use of strings i've heard on a rock/pop album since quadrophenia. i read somewhere that he had his dad arrange the strings on at least a few of the cuts....
if you go to
www.beck.com & download the sea change streamer in the news section, you can get a free listen. the song "paper tiger" is really cool......actually has a guitar soloist & string section mimicking each other to great effect.