Beck Reveals Why His New Album Took Seven Years—and the Music That Shaped It

Beck takes Track Star through a lifetime of sonic discoveries and surprises

Beck tests his music knowledge on YouTube musique show Track Star, but this is far more than a five-song guessing game. The restless musical shapeshifter moves from The Velvet Underground and early hip-hop to Bette Midler, his Spanish garage-rock friends Hinds, and the newer rap sounds of Travis Scott and Young Thug. Along the way, he opens up about the quiet instincts behind his new album, Ride Lonesome, and a childhood family history that practically hums with downtown New York lore.

There is history inside every needle drop here. Beck has a story for seemingly every record, and a few of them reach well beyond his own discography. We came for the music knowledge; we stayed for the time travel.

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The Velvet Underground leads Beck back to Warhol-era New York

The first selection, “There She Goes Again” by The Velvet Underground & Nico, is hardly a random classic for Beck. His mother, who grew up in New York, was connected to Andy Warhol’s Factory and, he recalls, even danced onstage with the Velvet Underground. There may be no photographic evidence of that particular night, but it makes for one fine piece of family folklore.

Beck recalls a grandfather who kept a loft on Great Jones Street in the late 1950s and early ’60s and hosted performance-art happenings there. One extraordinary family story involves a ballerina falling through a glass skylight as spectators watched below, initially mistaking the accident for part of the act; Beck says she survived. His mother also told him about hearing jazz musicians practice from open club doors in the Village, including Thelonious Monk. Imagine a childhood soundtrack like that.

From “White Lines” to Hinds: the records that made him move

With “White Lines (Don’t Do It)”, Beck recalls recording songs from the radio onto cassette and hearing booming portable stereos on the bus to school. His strongest memory of early hip-hop is its communal electricity: cardboard laid on the pavement, breakers spinning and freezing, bodies moving to a beat before rap became the dominant focus. He argues that dancing was once the star of the show.

Next comes “Boom Boom Back” by Hinds and Beck, a track with a much more personal connection. Beck remembers meeting the Madrid band at a bar through a friend involved in their management, then being invited the following day to sing on a song. He praises Hinds as underrated, with a kind of pure, celebratory garage-rock songwriting that translates beautifully onstage. That spontaneous invitation is an appropriately Beck-like origin story: a night out becomes a recording.

Bette Midler’s “The Rose” reveals a softer family connection

When Bette Midler’s “The Rose” starts playing, the mood shifts. Beck says his father worked on the recording and remembers the song’s gold record hanging in the stairway of the family home. It is an unexpectedly tender pause in a format built around surprise. He hears a ballad that was both an enormous pop hit and far heavier emotionally than the usual chart fare.

That feeling runs straight into the music he is making now. Discussing Ride Lonesome, released in September 2026, Beck explains that the long gap since his previous album was not a creative standstill. He had multiple directions in motion: sessions imagined in Mexico City, other collaborations, and even the possibility of working with Dan the Automator on a hip-hop-oriented record. But the slower, more introspective songs were what he most wanted to immerse himself in.

He describes a lifelong affection for quietly unfolding records that feel like companions, citing Françoise Hardy, Serge Gainsbourg, Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake. Warmth, patience and a little melancholy are very much his current wavelength. Beck even admits he sometimes takes a book to the beach largely for the comfort of having it nearby, whether or not he reads a page. The man is in his cozy era, but on his own beautifully eccentric terms.

Beck on Track Star: five songs, one gloriously eclectic musical life

From New York art-rock and formative hip-hop to a collaboration with Spanish garage-rockers and the emotional sweep of a classic ballad, the five selections map an artist who has never regarded genre as a fixed address. The final hip-hop choice brings the conversation back to contemporary music and Beck’s curiosity about the next generation.

Images: Track Star — Beck’s music-knowledge episode.

The final selection, “pick up the phone” by Young Thug and Travis Scott, prompts Beck to discuss modern rap. He says he enjoys Travis Scott, but has an especially strong admiration for Tyler, the Creator: the fearless collision of clothing, visual presentation, stage design and music appeals to Beck’s own fascination with things that supposedly should not belong together. He says he would love to collaborate with Tyler, and mentions that an A$AP collaboration has been waiting to emerge.

Track Star’s Beck episode: the five-song selection

“There She Goes Again” — The Velvet Underground & Nico
“White Lines (Don’t Do It)” — Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel
“Boom Boom Back” — Hinds & Beck
“The Rose” — Bette Midler
“pick up the phone” — Young Thug & Travis Scott

After decades of shape-shifting records, Beck remains an artist who can hear a thread linking a New York loft, a school-bus boombox, a Madrid garage-rock band and a newly released acoustic ballad. That is some serious musical memory—and plenty of unexpected magic.

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Sources: Track Star — “Testing Beck’s Music Knowledge” and its YouTube interview; Apple Music — Ride Lonesome.