Beck

Beck leaves the Hollywood freaks behind and heads to the country on this excellent disc. It's a refreshing change from Beck's post-modern party guy persona. The focus on singing and songwriting recalls Mutations, while the melancholy lyrics are backed by full arrangements for strings, piano and acoustic guitar.

In 1994, Beck Hansen released his first major-label album. He called it Mellow 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 -- a perfect treasure of
soft, spangled woe sung with a heavy open heart. It's the best album Beck has ever made,
and it sounds like he's paid dearly for the achievement. He reportedly wrote th... More >

How painful the calculation to become sincere, how arduous the labor to find one's ease. Nobody's saying he isn't talented, and there are some fetching tunes here. But when the most impressive thing about slow songpoetry is the string writing, somebody doesn't have his heart in it, and even if it's not his fault 'cause he doesn't have one, his dolor ends up as cold as his funk. For some that's the idea--a little affectlessness helps the prettiness go down. But whatever irony diehards believe, emotion and intelligence aren't mutually exclusive. Any argument to the contrary calls for active resistance. (Grade - B)