It’s not exactly Odelay at 30, though that’s still an anniversary worth noting. That was, after all, his magnum opus. And this is definitely lightyears from “Loser”, even if, come to think of it, that debut single already shared glimpses of self-flagellation.
We’ve long embraced sadness as Beck’s occasional schtick. 2002’s Sea Change started that shift, after a devastating break-up. It was followed 12 years later by Morning Phase, which tapped into his succeeding rebirth. That one won the Album of the Year Grammy in 2015. Now as he returns with his 15th album, we find him in morose territory yet again. This time, it’s more contemplative than ever.
Ride Lonesome marks his return after 2019’s Hyperspace. More than his first post-pandemic outing, it comes at the wake of his 2021 divorce from Marissa Ribisi. So, as far as his sad albums go, you know it’s real and, perhaps, more permanent. For one, the operative word is in the title. Toss in the word “ride” and you know forward is the only direction to take.
Gone, too, are the stylized cover portraits of the two predecessors. What we have now is him, literally alone in a room, seated by a window, engulfed and obscured by a windblown curtain. It’s like he’s back as a ghost, because something did die in him. And, this time, there’s no turning back.
Surrender is the pervading theme of this latest offering, the third in his quarter-century-spanning “sad trilogy”. If Sea Change and Morning Phase focused on mourning and healing, respectively, here, we find him achieving acceptance without the bitterness. The opening (title) track establishes as much, with the line “She is gone/And you can’t put your arms ‘round a memory/You know it’s wrong/To turn your heart into your worst enemy”.
What follows is a pensive 47-minute journey, riddled with straightforward lyrics and flavored with country folk. And, again, finality takes the lead with self-explanatory titles such as “It Ends Right Here”, “Falling Through My Hands”, and the latest single, “Disappearing Act”.
This is as raw as a melancholic trip can get, and it now comes from a more detached (third person) vantage point. The first two sad albums had Beck taking on the mantle of narrator. Here, he takes on a more distant approach, replacing first-hand accounts with broad musings. You can say he’s now examining the bigger picture, yet he hits the target more than ever.
We can’t say we’ve seen the last of Happy Beck. Somehow, there’s an inkling that his playful, experimental side will return. Still, the transformation is more than apparent. Here, he clearly no longer dreads the sadness. Instead of outrunning the grief, he’s turned it into the journey itself. It’s like witnessing a metamorphosis in recorded form. And just imagine who’d emerge thereafter.
