if you are a fan of the man, you may be in for a shock...beck is no longer the goofy alt-funkster that he used to be. his new album, "sea change", is by far the best of his career, but he's never made an album this risky before.

gone are the bleeps and blips of synthesizers and keyboards. gone are the clever homages to prince. beck is now a broken man.

"Sea Change" is a country-rock album, without a doubt. its the kind of album you listen to while drinking alone, feeling that life is horrible and wondering how in the world you've gotten where you are. songs like "guess i'm feeling fine", with the lyric "its only lies that i'm living/its only tears that i'm crying/its only you that i'm losing/guess i'm doing fine" break your heart and make you take another swig of beer and realize that life goes on.

i guess that the state i'm in right now is facilitating my enjoyment of this album quite a bit, but thats ok. trust me, you'll like it. buy it tuesday when it comes out. oh, and buy cKy, too.

I love his stuff and look forward to this change of pace.

Who is cky?

cKy is a musical force that will eventually change the world. don't believe me? just wait and see. don't know who they are? you will soon enough.

Beck is the man. Even though I don't like everything he does (like Prince, in fact) I respect and admire his geuine artistry and posture as a musician first and foremost. The Top 40 crowd could use a few more people like Beck, who are more interested in artistic expression than album sales or whether or not Spin thinks they're cool.

Haven't heard this one yet, but am looking forward to it.

Great, another album like Mutations...that album made me want to kill myself!!!

A friend of mine got me a copy of the album tonight and I've listened to it. It's a very brave move by Beck. In a similar move to what Prince did with ATWIAD after Purple Rain, Beck has completely switched styles on thie album. Anyone expecting much of the same after Midnight Vultures is gonna be surprised/dissapointed.

IMHO I think the album is fantastic!

This album is garnering major praise. The fact that rollingstone has given it a 5 star review speaks volumes. They never give these out anymore unless it's a reissued box set or new release from some dinosaur like Mick Jagger.

Here's a link- http://rollingstone.com/r...id=2044832

allmusicguide.com also has very positive things to say.

"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 of Midnite Vultures and the lush, somber Sea Change is startling, and not just because it finds him in full-on singer/songwriter mode, abandoning all of the postmodern pranksterism of its predecessor. 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. If, on most albums prior to this, Beck's music was a sonic kaleidoscope — each song shifting familiar and forgotten sounds into colorful, unpredictable combinations — this discards genre-hopping in favor of focus, and the concentration pays off gloriously, resulting in not just his best album, but one of the greatest late-night, brokenhearted albums in pop. This, as many reviews and promotional interviews have noted, is indeed a breakup album, but it's not a bitter listen; it has a wearily beautiful sound, a comforting, consoling sadness. His words are often evocative, but not nearly as evocative as the music itself, which is rooted equally in country-rock (not alt-country), early-'70s singer/songwriterism, and Baroque British psychedelia. With producer Nigel Godrich, Beck has created a warm, enveloping sound, with his acoustic guitar supported by grand string arrangements straight out of Paul Buckmaster, eerie harmonies, and gentle keyboards among other subtler touches that give this record a richness that unveils more with each listen. Surely, some may bemoan the absence of the careening, freeform experimentalism of Odelay, but Beck's gifts as a songwriter, singer, and musician have never been as brilliant as they are here. As Sea Change is playing, it feels as if Beck singing to you alone, revealing painful, intimate secrets that mirror your own. It's a genuine masterpiece in an era with too damn few of them." — Stephen Thomas Erlewine

I've always liked his work but this one has me really interested. I think I'll get it on Tuesday.

Sure he's brilliant, but for someone with my plebeian tastes he often comes across as too self consciously avant garde and 'ironic', with little or no emotional content in his music (the sort of stuff adored by cafe poseur assholes and people who write PhD theses on 'dance politics and the deconstruction of Bugs Bunny in post-Lacanic gay french writers'). Mutations is by far his best album IMHO. Sure, I'll copy the new one. Anyone wanna swap?