Every once in a while, Beck dips back into an old, reliable well and makes an album of bummed-out, heavily orchestrated acoustic music. That's the mode that he was in on Mutations, Sea Change, and Morning Phase — great records all. Last month, he released Ride Lonesome, his latest in that unofficial series. On Tuesday night, Beck was a guest on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. He performed "In The Night," his new LP's lead single, with a full string section behind him, including fellow Tonight Show guest Sacha Baron Cohen on cello.
Did you know Sacha Baron Cohen played cello? Well, he does. In 2020, Cohen told The New York Times that his first TV appearance was playing cello on something called Fanfare For Young Musicians. Cohen was on Fallon to promote his new movie Ali G: Who Iz I?, and I would love to know who asked for that. He did not play cello in character as Ali G, which might've been interesting. Instead, we just got the slightly distracting image of this one famous guy studiously and unfunnily sawing at his instrument during what was generally a lovely performance. Watch it below.
On last night's episode, Beck also sat for an interview with Jimmy Fallon. The two of them did a little 5-10-15-20 bit, with Beck talking about some of the records that influenced him: the Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs soundtrack, Mississippi John Hurt, Gary Wilson, Kraftwerk. He and Questlove also reminisced about playing some shows together back in the '90s, and he mentioned that Hansel, the Owen Wilson character in Zoolander, was at least partially based on him, which I can kind of see. Beck claimed that he turned down a cameo in Zoolander and that the part went to David Bowie instead. Bowie crushed that performance, so we're probably better off with the way things happened. Here's the interview.
Ride Lonesome is out now on Capitol. Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G movie comes out on Friday, and so does its soundtrack album. That record is executive produced by Andrew Watt and Hit-Boy, and Jon Batiste is on it. The single "Richer Than Elon," this month's second soundtrack song about Elon Musk, is out now.