Sea Change

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

Barnes & Noble

Nearly a decade after he announced himself with the slacker anthem "Loser," Beck Hansen has become one of the most prolific, talented, and well-rounded artists of his generation. Artistic development is a rarity in an age of prefab teenypop, predictable rap, and recycled rock clichés, so Beck, who's delved into country, hip-hop, psychedelic rock, funk, tropicalia, and more, is a true standout. But nothing he's done -- not his stripped-down 1994 album One Foot in the Grave or the relatively straight-ahead Mutations -- foreshadowed the soul-baring, artifice-free tack of Sea Change, a sincere, folk-based album spun around breakup songs of the saddest order. Lyrically, the heartbroken Beck douses his beer with tears, sadly admitting that "Baby, I'm a lost cause" ("Lost Cause") and "It's only lies that I'm livin'/it's only tears that I'm cryin'/It's only you that I'm losin'/I guess I'm doin' fine" ("Guess I'm Doin' Fine"). The undecorated lyrics belie a wealth of winning musical touchstones. The lush strings, gorgeous guitar picking, and aching delivery of Nick Drake figure into "Round the Bend" and "Already Dead," while confessional sob singers such as the Red House Painters' Mark Kozelek, Mark Eitzel, and Jeff Buckley inform "Nothing I Haven't Seen" and "All in Your Mind." Beck's intimate delivery makes the songs ring true, casting them in stark relief to the raunchy, Prince-ly funk of 1999's Midnite Vultures. Beck can't, however, keep his upper lip stiff throughout: With its swooning strings, slithery bass line, and funky guitar licks, "Paper Tiger" echoes Serge Gainsbourg's lascivious "Melody." But mostly, Sea Change finds our little musical wunderkind with a bruised heart and soul -- and the daring and artistic wherewithal to make something useful of it. Lydia Vanderloo

Rolling Stone

Sea Change 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. David Fricke

Spin Magazine

Ever since Odelay's misleadingly titled "Jack-Ass," Beck's been trying to capture the spiritual fatigue underlying his snarky superhit "Loser." Sea Change nails it just when we could all use a reflective time out. (9) Will Hermes

Blender

This is folk gone perverse, like a harmonica dipped in Vaseline. RJ Smith