Beck's Ride Lonesome closes the Sea Change–Morning Phase trilogy — SkimNews
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- Ride Lonesome completes what the review calls a trilogy with Sea Change (2002) and Morning Phase (2014), reuniting Nigel Godrich on mixing, David Campbell on orchestrations, and backing musicians from both prior albums.
- Beck's new album marks a stylistic reversal from 2019's Hyperspace, a synth-heavy, vaporwave-influenced record produced by Pharrell Williams that Beck had framed as a one-way departure from personal songwriting.
- The title track references Julie London's 'Cry Me a River' and Johnny Thunders' 'You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory,' while songs like In the Night summon the ghosts of Nick Drake and Robert Kirby, mirroring Sea Change and Morning Phase.
- Ride Lonesome's lyrics reflect Beck in his mid-50s grappling with time passing, not just romantic collapse — the closer Beyond the Light invokes 'nameless days' and 'the dying of the light.'
- Beck applied stringent quality control: songs were recorded, set aside for years, then reconsidered, with a huge amount of material discarded before the album was finished.
- The Guardian review concludes Ride Lonesome avoids diminishing returns, calling it 'a sequel to a sequel that's every bit as good as its predecessors.'
Why it matters: The album reinforces a pattern critics have long observed about Beck: his most acclaimed work — Sea Change was a critical and commercial hit, Morning Phase won album of the year at the Grammys — tends to emerge from personal turmoil, and Ride Lonesome does little to dispel that theory, cementing an artist-fan bargain where his unhappiest periods yield his most rewarding music.
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