Sea Change

The record followed the end of Beck's nine-year relationship with Leigh Limon after the Midnite Vultures tour. Most of the 12 songs were written in about a week and then shelved. Beck said they spoke to an experience common to many people, so recording them would not seem self-indulgent. Much of the album was recorded live, with strings and effects added later, and each song took at least two days. Beck said it turned into a song every two days, and that the whole record took about three and a half weeks, against about two for Mutations. He was 32, and the plan had been to make it about four years earlier, a delay he linked to the events of September 11. Sessions began on 6 March 2002 at Ocean Way Studios and the mix was finished on 7 May. Recording had been planned for late 2001 and was delayed after September 11, and in January 2002 Beck cut tracks with Dan the Automator that were not used.

The sound was partly inspired by Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971), especially on Paper Tiger. Beck felt it was closer to One Foot in the Grave than to Mutations, and called it a reunion of sorts. It came in four different covers, with art by Jeremy Blake. Mobile Fidelity issued a remaster in June 2009.

Beck first hoped to record a track a day, as on Mutations, but each song took at least two days because of the orchestral arrangements. Godrich said Beck's voice had dropped since Mutations and now produced a canyonesque vibration. Joni Mitchell was due in the studio, so the band slipped in on weekends to finish. During one session Beck began strumming his 1995 single It's All in Your Mind before a new song, Godrich said they had to do that, and the reworked version made the album. Ship in the Bottle was the only finished track left off, and Beck said in 2002 that it was a little too corny. The title comes from a line in Little One. Beck released tracks on his website one by one in July and August 2002, and videos were made for Golden Age, Lonesome Tears, Guess I'm Doing Fine, Little One and two for Lost Cause.

Release and reception

It reached number 8 in the United States, 5 in Canada and 1 in Norway, and 20 in the United Kingdom. It was certified gold in the United States in March 2005, with 680,000 sold there by July 2008. Rolling Stone gave it five stars, with David Fricke calling it the best album Beck had made, and named it an album of 2002. It stands at number 436 on the magazine's 2012 list. Spin gave it 9 out of 10, Pitchfork 6.9 and NME 6 out of 10, and its Metacritic score is 79. Beck toured it first as a low-key acoustic theatre run from August 2002, with Jack White making a surprise appearance, and then in October and November with the Flaming Lips as openers.

He set aside his touring band and the Sea Change group shortly before the tour and rearranged the songs each night. His covers included the Rolling Stones' No Expectations, Big Star's Kangaroo, the Zombies' Beechwood Park and the Velvet Underground's Sunday Morning, which David Fricke called breathtaking. Rolling Stone ranked it 17th on its list of the 100 best albums of the 2000s. The Guardian called it Beck's finest album from top to bottom. A recording of the Austin City Limits taping of 11 November 2002 is on the Internet Archive.