WUSSY WEDNESDAY - 8/5/09

It’s my turn this Wednesday, and BOY am I a WUSS.

This week I feature one of the most depressing albums ever recorded, but as always I have a story behind it all. Lo and behold: Beck, Sea Change.

The story here is this: my junior year of college I had to take two semesters of studio recording and live concert recording. (Don’t ask me to record a demo for you, I still can’t wrap my head around ProTools. But I CAN help you set up and build your own studio. Get it.) When we were learning about surround sound, our professor brought us into the studio and played us some tracks at full volume explaining how panning works and yada yada yada. A couple of the tracks he played were from Sea Change and not gonna lie, they sounded pretty amazing.

According to Prof. Abbott, Beck recorded this album after being broken up with and was so distraught that he basically just lived in the studio writing and recording to try to get over the suck that had become his life. Out of all the albums he’s put out over the years, I’m pretty sure Sea Change was the biggest commercial failure, but because I first heard it in surround sound and was probably a little melancholy myself that day, it’s become my favorite album of Beck’s hands down. “It’s the kind of album that you go home to after a long day, pour yourself some scotch, put it on full volume surround and just listen to the whole thing and cry.”- I’ve never actually done that, but I can definitely see it being um, relaxing?

So next time “Close My Eyes Forever” isn’t really doin’ it for you for you’re down in the dumps, give Sea Change a try. Just go easy on the scotch. And make it Jameson, not Ardbeg.

-Julia