Beck - Sea Change
Critic Score
Based on 15 reviews
2002 Ratings: #47 / 259
User Score
Based on 844 ratings
2002 Rank: #117
Liked by 140 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
AllMusic

What's startling about Sea Change is how it brings everything that's run beneath the surface of Beck's music to the forefront, as if he's unafraid to not just reveal emotions, but to elliptically examine them in this wonderfully melancholy song cycle.

100
Rolling Stone

A perfect treasure of soft, spangled woe sung with a heavy open heart ... It's the best album Beck has ever made.

100
Slant Magazine

Beck has crafted a meditative masterpiece of powerful resonance.

90
Drowned in Sound
The music is as haunting as the singer is haunted - stark, late-evening acoustic melodies embellished by gorgeous eastern strings, courtesy of Beck’s old man.
90
SPIN
A supremely dainty-assed achievement that jerks real tears.
83
Entertainment Weekly

With repeated listenings, the sluggish ditties transform into a beautiful, mournful hymn of love won and lost.

80
No Ripcord
If this is what heartbreak sounds like, then here's to cold women and shattered illusions the whole world over.
80
NOW Magazine

Beck incorporates everything from elements of Nick Drake and Pink Floyd to a massive quote from Serge Gainsbourg's Melody Nelson, while Radiohead sidekick Nigel Godrich builds the songs into something more by twisting tape around blending sounds in the background. It's as grandiose as a breakup record could be.

80
Q Magazine

Once you've let it grow on you, Sea Change is largely so lovely that you'll forgive him.

69
Pitchfork

On Sea Change, Beck sounds intentionally world-weary, but it's the songs themselves that sound labored. Is it no longer enough for Beck to write profound, genre-bending tunes that stand on their own? Does he really need the crutch of suffocating overproduction and bold strokes of orchestration to shock us into caring again?

60
The Guardian
There is no sense of electrifying invention here, merely a songwriter perfecting his craft. Sometimes, that isn't enough.
40
Uncut
This is pretty gloomy going, not rendered much easier by the lugubrious baritone in which Beck delivers his emotional autopsies, or the vague, amorphous melodies.
MasterCrackfox
91

Beck had already established a truly massive amount of versatility over the 90's, with albums Mellow Gold and Odelay having such an eclectic array of genres they really could never be fully pegged down. His next release, Mutations, explored more of his folk and blues influences and, while more grounded in consistent tones, was still clearly an experimental affair for the artist. Midnite Vultures was an also more grounded album, but was far more upbeat and tailored more towards a funky style of ... read more

MolotovNacht
98

beck is one of the best musical minds to ever live

davidbyrne
100

Fuck you Pitchfork Fuck you Pitchfork Fuck you Pitchfork Fuck you Pitchfork

AntonioCurry
83

Ridiculous that this followed Midnite Vultures

>Paper Tiger
>Lost Cause
>Sunday Sun

RealZzzz
83

Sweet little album :))

rise165
87

One of the prettiest records I've come across in awhile. Like many others the only Beck Song I'd ever heard before this was Loser, so this is definitely not what I was expecting. It's gorgeous. Frontloaded, but gorgeous

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Track List

1The Golden Age
4:36
94
2Paper Tiger
4:35
91
3Guess I'm Doing Fine
4:49
91
4Lonesome Tears
5:37
88
5Lost Cause
3:47
91
6End of the Day
5:03
84
7It's All In Your Mind
3:05
85
8Round the Bend
5:15
88
9Already Dead
2:58
84
10Sunday Sun
4:44
85
11Little One
4:26
85
12Side of the Road
3:23
84
Total Length: 52 minutes

Year End Lists

#3/SPIN
#16/NME
#42/Pitchfork
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