Looking Through a Broken Diamond

On Paper Tiger, Beck casts his postmodern sonic mania aside in exchange for clear-minded melancholia you can both hear and feel. Itchy guitars battle meaty bass lines and a spry rhythm section surrounded by towering chamber-pop strings expertly arranged. It hurts so good.

Beck is a master craftsman in the studio. He uses medium and genre as fluid concepts that work to deconstruct pop conventions and sensibilities (or sometimes just straight-up destruct). Through his first four albums, the only thing he consistently did was defy conventions (and Sexx Laws: look it up). When listening to a Beck album or even a song, the only thing you can be sure of is the next one will be something different.

"Sea Change" was Beck's fifth album. It was a high water mark then, and amongst a three-decade catalog filled with a dozen good-to-great albums, it remains remarkable in both songwriting and production. "Sea Change" unsurprisingly was a departure from his earlier efforts in two critical ways. Firstly, it is very focused. Second and most importantly, it is a breakup album. In fact, I will not-so-humbly submit that "Sea Change" is THE breakup album.

"Sea Change" was born in the wake of Beck and his fiancée, stylist Leigh Limon, ending their nine-year relationship. Weeks before his thirtieth birthday, he discovered she was having an affair, and things fell apart. You can feel the gut punch in every guitar strum, verse, and string swell on the record. It's not a depressing listen, though. "Sea Change" is quite beautiful.

An earnest throughline makes the album novel in Beck's work up to this point. Gone are winks and nudges, shotgun sampling, and gleefully childish innuendo marking much of his earlier work. What's left are spare acoustic tracks and a heartbreaking singer-songwriter confessional of loneliness, solitude, and critical introspection.

Listening Notes

• The fourth bass note at the end of the first measure (0:00) will test your amplification and woofers. I often use this as a test track to see if a hi-fi system can reproduce that note without distortion.
• Strings coming in (0:29) alongside the hard-right-panned guitar is a great juxtaposition that continues and builds to incredible heights through the track.
• A guitar solo (3:09) kicks off a dueling guitar, bass, and strings section that's worth the price of admission. Fun fact: Beck's father, David Campbell, provided string arrangements on "Sea Change."

It's no accident that "Sea Change" is a sonic production masterpiece. Beck turned to long-time collaborator and master producer/engineer Nigel Goodrich to record the album. Goodrich's work includes acts like Radiohead, Beck, Paul McCartney, U2, R.E.M., Pavement, Roger Waters, and Arcade Fire. The man knows what he is doing. And we all benefit from it. Heartbreak never sounded so incredible.

Data

Song: Paper Tiger
Album: Sea Change
Artist: Beck
Genre: Alternative
Year: 2002
Length: 4:36
Composer: Beck Hansen
Producer: Nigel Goodrich