Take Beck's Weird Week to Celebrate 20 Years of 'Sea Change'
Between covering Neil Young for a Sunday Night Football commercial, and being called "Ed Sheeran-like" by Ken Jennings, it was an odd week full of Beck. Plus, 20 years of 'Sea Change.'
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As I watched my Donkeys squeak it out against the Niners last Sunday night, the oddest promo for the next week’s game caught me off guard, and I wasn’t the only one.
To no one’s surprise, the NFL wants to showcase what may be (please, god) the last matchup between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. Set to a montage of some of Brady’s and Mahomes’ career highlights that we’ve all seen a million times was Beck, alone on a stool, strumming an acoustic guitar while covering Neil Young’s classic song, “Old Man.” Sure, the music works for the narrative that with time, Mahomes will have as many championships as Brady and hopefully be a much less obnoxious, but having the gangly, 90s slacker icon show up to sling money for NBC is odd, to say the least.
Beck Hanson is no longer the “young man,” now in his early 50s - Young’s song is definitely a choice at this point in the lifelong Angeleno’s career. On Tuesday, Young responded with an Instagram post of him at a much younger age holding a beer bottle with a label saying “sponsored by nobody.”
Neil, my guy. You’re one of my all-time favorite musicians, and I completely respect your history of famously scoffing at anything corporate. But, please let me jog your memory that last year, you sold 50% of your song catalog rights to a faceless British investment company. Your tunes will now be used in corny football commercials and probably much worse. May it remind all of the boomer legacy acts selling their catalogs that this is what will come of their songs once they’re out of the artist’s hands.
If that wasn’t enough Beck, this week was like 1997 cos this dude was everywhere. During an episode of Jeopardy, Beck showed up again, this time as an answer under the category of “One-Name Rockstars.” David Sibley, the reigning champion, guessed Ed Sheeran… so much for the “one-name” hint. Only making things worse, otherwise fantastic host, Ken Jennings called Beck “Ed Sheeran-like.” I haven’t stopped cringing because Sheeran, your mom’s favorite subway busker, dreams of making anything close to Beck’s acoustic breakup masterpiece, Sea Change, which also celebrated the twentieth-anniversary milestone this week.
A timeless album, two decades of Sea Change has me thinking way back to when it was released. I had just started my senior year of high school, and after a few assignments, my English teacher approached me about writing for the school newspaper. I had never considered it, but I answered immediately, “yes.” Being the intelligent person that she was, I was assigned to write for the culture section, which makes sense, as I had and still have to this day, as much pop culture knowledge as Bobby Hill on Tom Landry Middle School’s Quiz Bowl team.
It was here that I would write my first album year-end list, something I never imagined I would still be doing two decades later. I only remember some of the records, like The Promise Ring’s underrated last album, Wood/Water, but I do remember that The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was the winner, with Beck’s Sea Change, the runner-up. I don’t have time to regret the choice because many other moments in high school wake you up cringing in the middle of the night. However, after all of these years, Yoshimi may still be a fantastic album, but Sea Change is the only record from that era I still reach for consistently.
When Sea Change dropped, the acoustic opening E chord on “The Golden Age” sounded like the most delicate bomb went off. Beck made a name for himself as a 90s alternative hero, from the MTV constant rotation single “Loser” to absolutely exploding with Odelay. Even while saying goodbye to the decade with the greasy funk of the astounding Midnight Vultures, Beck almost always was in dancefloor-filling mode.
"Before we recorded, we listened to Mutations, and his voice sounded like Mickey Mouse. His range has dropped. Now when he opens his mouth, a canyonesque vibration comes out. It's quite remarkable. He has amazing tone."
-Nigel Godrich, producer on ‘Sea Change’
Though Mutations touched on more acoustic numbers in 1998, the heartbreak, sorrow, and isolation on Sea Change are unlike anything else in Beck’s catalog. As the old cliché goes, “the best art comes from suffering,” and Sea Change is no exception. On the cusp of his thirtieth birthday, Beck found out his fiancee was having an affair after an almost decade relationship. Sea Change is the result of this challenging period, recorded with Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, R.E.M., Paul McCartney… you get the picture) returning to the producer’s chair.
From Autumn de Wilde’s iconic album cover photo of Beck’s thousand-yard stare to the rich strings throughout (arranged by Beck’s dad), Sea Change is a portrait of the raw human condition. Songs like “Guess I’m Doing Fine” and “Lonesome Tears” are a blueprint for constructing a perfect broken-hearted ballad and sound just as fresh to this day. Recorded mainly in a live setting at Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles, Beck and Godrich bring the best out of a phenomenal group, like the everpresent drummer, Joey Waronker, and Beck’s bandmates in Justin Meldal-Johnsen and Roger Joseph Manning Jr.
Beck would revisit this sound with 2014’s Morning Phase, which won Album of the Year at the Grammys, a surprise while going against the usual pop likes of Beyoncé, Sam Smith, and of course, ginger gremlin Ed Sheeran. Bringing back almost the entire Sea Change team minus Godrich, Morning Phase is advertised as the companion piece to Sea Change. Released twelve years later, Morning Phase is a more mature version of the Beck found on Sea Change, but for my money, and probably thanks to listening with teenage sincerity, there’s nothing like that bleak album from twenty years ago.
Like Beck, or can’t stand him? Let me know what your favorite Beck record is!
I'm not sure I've ever listened to an entire Beck record all the way through. I liked "Loser," love the scuzzy way "Devil's haircut" sounds, and think "Blue Moon" is beautiful. But after that??