“Dear Life”

Leave it to Beck to craft a sunny, upbeat pop song that doubles as a scream into the void. After releasing the tender, relatively sedate Morning Phase in 2014—yes, the one that led to him receiving an Album of the Year award from Prince and being interrupted by Kanye West at the 2015 Grammys—all signs pointed toward him ping-ponging back to party mode for the follow-up. “Dear Life,” the kaleidoscopic new single from his forthcoming album, Colors, has something for partiers and wallflowers alike.

Propelled by jaunty roadhouse piano and sizzling guitar fills that have already drawn multiple Beatles comparisons, “Dear Life” is deeply inviting, down to its concluding la-la-las. But that’s complicated by lyrics that ask questions of life itself in a pretty weird way, like when Beck starts out by describing dogs that make “mincemeat” of your dreams. This mix of light and heavy, retro and contemporary—not to mention the Spoon-like strut—recalls Beck’s 2008 album Modern Guilt, though with the hitmaker Greg Kurstin producing this time rather than the vintage aesthete Danger Mouse. When Beck asks on the buoyant chorus about the thrill being gone, the answer is: not yet—not in his career, not in this life-affirming song.