Sea Change (2007) Album Review

Expert Review Summary

Music critics combined give Sea Change a score of 3.1751 out of 4

based on (46) reviews

Click on the numbers to the right of the graph to see reviews of that rating

Excellent

Music critics combined give Sea Change a score of 4 out of 4

(17)

Very Good

Music critics combined give Sea Change a score of 3 out of 4

(16)

Good

Music critics combined give Sea Change a score of 2 out of 4

(6)

Fair

Music critics combined give Sea Change a score of 1 out of 4

(0)

Poor

Music critics combined give Sea Change a score of 0 out of 4

(7)

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Rolling Stone

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

Many of these harrowing tunes, like "Lonesome Tears" and "Guess I'm Doing Fine" have the lonely blues feel of Beck's similar-sounding Mutations, and they definitely get better with repeated play.
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Rolling Stone

In 1994, Beck Hansen released his first major-label album. He called itMellow Gold, and we all laughed at the irony: slacker caricature and coffeehouse hip-hop billed like a K-tel makeout platter.But Sea Change, his eighth album, is the real thing --
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Slant Magazine

If the current buzz surrounding Beck's eighth album is to be believed (and it should), the pioneering artist has just created his greatest recording to date. From the first doleful guitar twang of "The Golden Age," you know you're not in Beck's
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The Daily Vault Album Reviews

With the exception of Bob Dylan, no other contemporary artist has worn so many guises in recent memory as Beck. He has played the "one-hit wonder" boy when he released "Loser," he played earnest country-rocker with his bootlegs, namelyOne Foot In
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Stylus Magazine

It would be an unfair to start this review without a disclaimer. Iâm an old school Beck fan, I was drawn intoMellow GoldandStereopathetic Soul Manureâs chaotic, fragmented and thoroughly warped glee, the humor and manic pastiche
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CDNow

Certainly his most personal record, arguably his best.
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Billboard

Beck has rarely performed with such maturity and confidence, breathing a rich, often haunting baritone into songs that seem to follow a plotline thread of despair after the end of a relationship.
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Neumu.net

Sea Change not only signals a pinnacle in his career but may just be remembered, in an environment fueled by accelerating cycles of disposable culture, as one of this young decade's best records.
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Dusted Magazine

For the first time in his career he has made an album that is clearly not a product of “Beck”, the single-syllabled entertainer, but rather that of “Beck Hansen”, the person.
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PrefixMag

It's a miserable, rainy, gray afternoon in New York. Beck is so miserable. Sea Change is near perfect. Listening to his voice, stripped of electronic distortions and missing any smirk of irony, it seems almost naked. How can anyone listen to
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ShakingThrough.net

How's this for an unfair deal: famous recording artist and not as well-known girlfriend break up. The recording artist gets to tell his side of the story through music, while the ex-lover has no such forum at her disposal. A recipe for bitterness
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All Music Guide

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 he's unafraid to not just reveal emotions, but to elliptically examine them in this wonderfully melancholy song cycle.
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All Music Guide

Beck has always been known for his ever-changing moods -- particularly since they often arrived one after another on one album, sometimes within one song -- yet the shift between the neon glitz ofMidnite Vulturesand the lush, somberSea
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Austin Chronicle

Sea Change joins Weezer's Maladroit and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' By the Way on the list of beautiful-but-sad 2002 L.A. LPs.
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