Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
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AnyDecentMusic?	7.2/10
Metacritic	78/100
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AllMusic
The Daily Telegraph
Entertainment Weekly	B+
The Guardian
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Q
Rolling Stone
Spin	6/10
The Times

The Sea is the second studio album by English singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae. It was released on 20 January 2010 by EMI as the follow-up to her eponymous 2006 debut. The album was conceived following her hiatus from recording, taken in the wake of her husband Jason Rae's death. She recorded The Sea at Limefield Studios in Manchester, England during 2009, working mostly with a host of session musicians and the record producers Steve Brown and Steve Chrisanthou. It features songs written by Rae before and after her husband's death, touching on themes of love, lament, and solace.

In the United Kingdom, The Sea debuted at number five on the UK Albums Chart and was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). It also charted at number seven on the Billboard 200 in the United States, where it reached sales of 156,000 by April 2010. A critical success, The Sea received mostly positive reviews and was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. Rae supported the album with a concert tour in early 2010.

Following the multi-platinum and award-winning success of her eponymous debut album in 2006, Corinne Bailey Rae began to work on songs for a follow-up album at the end of 2007. She took a hiatus from music, however, after the death of her husband, Scottish saxophonist Jason Rae, in March 2008 to an accidental overdose of methadone and alcohol. For a long period of time, Rae said, "I didn't really hear any songs. Normally in my everyday life, I'd be in the car and come up with a little line, or I'd look at something and try to describe it ... I didn't really think in that way anymore. Nothing was coming in." After months of grief and isolation, Rae revisited her work the following year and composed additional material for The Sea.

The Sea contains songs written before and after the death of Rae's husband, all of which she said resonated with her: "The circumstances have cast it all in a different light. It began as a 'before and after' record, but it's become an 'after' record". The ballad "I'd Do It All Again" was written by Rae in January 2008 after an argument with her husband. She told NME that writing the rest of the album helped her handle the different emotions she felt after her husband's death: "When I started writing that I was thinking, 'I don't really want this song to go into the world, 'cause it's so naked…' But I had to". "I Would Like to Call it Beauty", she said, was written about finding beauty in the "darkest times", later telling journalist Sean O'Hagan:

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