Morning Phase – Beck (2014)
Today’s selection is a great example of how opinions change over time. Back in late 2014, I ranked Beck’s Morning Phase as my #13 album of the decade so far.
Now, five years later, I have it at #12 on my whole-decade list. And a few of the albums I ranked above it back then aren’t on this list at all.
Morning Phase stuck with me while those others faded. This is why it’s never ideal to make best-of lists so soon after the end of a year or a decade. You often don’t know which albums, films or books will linger in your mind and your heart years later. Only time can reveal those answers.
Morning Phase is the spiritual sequel to Beck’s Sea Change, which I named my sixth favorite album of the 00s. So he’s doing something right, especially when working in this mode of gorgeous melancholy.
I hope he goes for the trilogy in the 2020s.
Give me traces of your lifeblood flowing
In a loving cup
And tell me I’m dream dream dream dreaming
And I’ll never wake up:
A keepsake in a dresser drawer
From who-knows-where
A symbol of your exegesis
And a full-length mirror
[Hook]
I’ll never never never never never never refuse you
I’ll never never never never never never refuse you
My blackbird chain
My blackbird chain
My blackbird chain
My blackbird
Chain
[Verse II]
An SOS from an outpost there
And a common air
Now I could read you a brief account
Of a last frontier
We could come to understand what’s wrong
As right as rain
At rock bottom of a hollowed ground
Restake your claim
[Hook]
Meet Me In Montauk 
Your love of melancholy continues to hold strong.
I like this as an atmospheric album, but I certainly don’t view it above some of the ones you’ve already listed. But I do hope you get your Beck fix in 2020 lol
I only really know this album as the one that beat Beyonce at the Grammys causing much controversy. I suppose I should give it a listen to see if it was just genuinely deserved over Bey.