On the Beach (Chris Rea album)
album by Chris Rea
On the Beach is the eighth studio album by British singer-songwriter Chris Rea, released in April 1986, and built on the success of the preceding Shamrock Diaries. It reached No. 11 on the UK Albums Chart (and also in Sweden), topped the Dutch charts (where it charted for more than nine months), reached number two in West Germany and No. 4 in New Zealand (where is also spent more than nine months in the charts). It also reached the top 10 in Norway. In 2019, a deluxe remastered version of the album was released.
Songs
In an interview for the deluxe edition of the album, Rea said of the song Giverny, written after a visit to Monet's celebrated home, "I didn't want to be there. I was only there because she (his wife, Joan) was there... so there's kinda, a funny twist to it".
Critical reception
AllMusic notes that, "while The Road to Hell shows the darker side of Rea's worldview, On the Beach is an excellent introduction to his brighter, more optimistic songwriting".
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “On the Beach (Chris Rea album)” as album by Chris Rea. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as album by Chris Rea. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1638881. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1986 and 2019.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “On the Beach (Chris Rea album)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow On the Beach (Chris Rea album) primary sources, On the Beach (Chris Rea album) archive and Beach research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “On the Beach (Chris Rea album)”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “On the Beach (Chris Rea album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.