Beck Ride Lonesome: The genre-hopping auteur trades experimental production for dust-road storytelling on a surprisingly straight-faced western-inflected LP.
Beck has never been one to stay put. The Los Angeles producer who rose to fame by chopping up folk samples and rap beats, who later commandeered yacht rock and synth-pop, who spent years in the experimental wilderness, is about to release ‘Ride Lonesome’ on September 18, and with this album, Beck is trading the studio’s infinite palette for something that looks an awful lot like a traditional country record. Not the ironic country-by-way-of-art-school kind that indie rock has dabbled in for decades. This is something closer to genuine.
The project represents a notable tonal shift for an artist whose entire catalog has been built on refusing the obvious next move. Where recent work found Beck circling back to his lo-fi origins and exploring instrumental textures, ‘Ride Lonesome’ appears to find him embracing narrative clarity and the kind of methodical, acoustic-forward storytelling that sits squarely in Americana territory. The title itself signals intent: no abstraction, no conceptual distance. Just a man, his horse, and apparently whatever story unfolds across these tracks.
Whether Beck’s Ride Lonesome represents a temporary detour or a genuine recalibration of his artistic priorities remains to be heard, but for an artist who built his reputation on unpredictability, choosing to be straightforward might just be his most radical move yet. The album drops September 18.
