"We saw shadows of the morning light
The shadows of the evening sun
Till the shadows and the light were one."
(Jane's Addiction - Three Days)

Beware of those careless words tossed around. Disbelieve your first impressions of a treacherous simplicity, a return to old values. Already we can sense the arrogant mantra with which you will be told that the boy has finally channeled his talent into following in the footsteps of Gram Parsons and Neil Young. I am already bored. For once, try to forget this game of playing with the pieces of influence. The introverted music on Sea Change should not come as a surprise: Beck always has worked according to a dialectic of acoustic simplicity and a postmodern kaleidoscopic sound. But something does surprise. It would be seductive to see in Sea Change a triumphant appearance of The Real Beck. But are simplicity and loneliness the true signs of authenticity? Do they not form another mask behind a mask, so subtly that it cannot be distinguished from the real? Better to let this question rest; if someone is always unreal, it eventually becomes the real. In the case of Beck, he remains in flux, vague, indefinitive.