Sea Change is a gorgeous, sprawling album of heavy-hearted
introspection. I think it's Beck's finest album and, as is so often the case, it comes out
of a time of heartbreak and trouble.
This recording may as well be dubbed the first album of a daring duo: Beck
and Radiohead's producer Nigel Godrich. Godrich seems liberated by the slow, sparse
arrangements of these heartbreak narratives, so that Beck's lyrics creak and groan like a
battered ship at sea. And the sea... the sea is an ocean of strings more overpowering than
on any rock record I can remember.
Yet, this stands out as a rare Godrich production because the vocals stand
out so resonantly that we really get the feeling we're inside Beck's head. And what a
strange, sad trip that journey is.
Okay, so the story goes that these songs were written right after Beck's
breakup with his girlfriend. So what? He has the dignity to keep the specific personal
stuff private. The real headline here is that, for the first time, the listener will
probably get a good handle on what most of the songs are about. The lyrics are less
ambiguous. (To say they are straightforward would be a gross exaggeration.) I've always
enjoyed Beck's wordplay, but he's kept me at a distance because I rarely get an inkling of
what they're really *about*. (Some of the satires on "Midnite Vultures" are
exceptions, but they're just that: cultural commentary and satire. Nothing terribly
inspiring or moving about that.)
When I first heard "Round the Bend", the album's centerpiece and
the strongest song in Beck's whole catalogue, my first thought... right during the opening
strains... was "My goodness, this sounds like Nick Drake's 'River Man'." (If you
don't know who Nick Drake is, check out "Five Leaves Left", one of the most
beautiful, syrup-thick, luxuriantly moody records of the last 30 years.) The song then
unfolded not as a cover, but as a sort of sequel. Then, to discover that "Sunday
Sun" has a predecessor on the same Drake album that includes "River Man", a
song called "Saturday Sun", sealed the deal. This might be Beck's album of
wishful thinking... what if the master of despondent, autumn poetry was alive today and
really liked Radiohead? What would he write if he had just broken up with his
longtime girlfriend.
Beck doesn't suggest anything beyond the merest hope of healing. But art
is not required to give us the whole picture. If it gives us part of the picture as fully
and honestly as possible, we should be able to fill in the rest. The music, while sad, is
beautiful, and proof enough that all things work together for good.
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