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Since introducing himself to the world in 1994 with his genre-defying, multi-platinum debut, Mellow Gold, Beck has blazed a path into the future while simultaneously foraging through the past. Throughout his singular career he has utilized all manners and eras of music, blurring boundaries and shattering expectations with each album. From the world-tripping atmospherics of 1998's Mutations and the florescent funk of 1999's Midnite Vultures through the somber reflections of 2002's Sea Change, 2005's platinum tour de force Guero and 2006's sprawling The Information, no Beck record has ever sounded like its predecessor.
In the fall of 2016, UMe will begin to reissue Beck's entire envelope-pushing DGC/Geffen/Interscope catalog on vinyl, beginning in October with the trifecta of his 1996 Grammy Award-winning game-changer, Odelay, 2002's beautiful, brokenhearted, Sea Change, and 2005's Guero, which saw Beck reunite with the Dust Brothers. Sea Change will be released as a double LP while Guero will be made available for the first time ever as a single LP. Mellow Gold, Mutations, Midnight Vultures, The Information and Modern Guilt will follow at a later date.
Beck's seventh album, Sea Change, signified a dramatic musical shift in sound and tone from its predecessor, the funky, R&B-influenced Midnite Vultures, and as its title suggested, was a profound transformation. Inspired by the dissolution of a longtime relationship, Beck transformed his sadness into both his most personal and beautiful record to date, trading his trademark sample-filled songs and impressionistic, irreverent lyrics for pensive melodies, sweeping strings and direct, confessional lyrics.
Produced by Nigel Godrich, the album, which peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, was made with a full band which included guitarist Smokey Hormel, keyboard player Roger Manning, drummer Joey Waronker; Beck's father, David Campbell, provided string arrangements. While widely praised upon release in 2002, the album has only grown in stature. Rolling Stone's David Fricke hailed it as "the best album Beck has ever made," adding it's his "Blood On The Tracks," and the record was listed in their 2009 definitive list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" and the "100 Best Albums of the 2000s." In SPIN's 10-year anniversary piece, they declared it "the best melancholy album of the millennium" while The Guardian called it "his masterpiece."