Ryan Beatty is, as track three of his new record titles itself, a ‘virtuoso’ of many kinds. For fans of Beatty, this is no new revelation; his melodic and lyrical sensibilities have been manifest since his 2018 debut, Boy In Jeans, and far before. He’s part of the YouTube generation, using the platform as a musical springboard alongside the likes of Troye Sivan and Conan Gray. In short, Beatty is no ingénu. He’s quite the opposite; if you were to ask contemporary singer-songwriters their holy grail acts, his is a name that often makes the cut.
Beatty’s project have been sparse since 2023’s Calico, a body of work so lauded that his follow-up had to tectonically impact his hoards of music-geek fans just to be considered adequate. As a lover of Calico, and a restless music geek, I can say this much after sitting with Sweet Fortune for a weekend, a short three-day stretch experiencing these songs against the backdrop of the Italian south — it is not only on par with Calico, it is better.
Whilst Calico sewed together a patchwork quilt of a disjointed relationship, on Sweet Fortune, Beatty is tenderly, cautiously, in love. On ‘White Lightning,’ he explains to his paramour that “it’s [his] religious shame that keeps [him] on guard,” yet still the song’s muse is “bright when everything dims,” much like white lightning itself. Throughout the folky ten-track run, Beatty unravels in real time. On the lead single, ‘Secret Language,’ he communicates with his lover through gestures, and — most pivotally — through song. Though he’s wounded, he explains that he’s “truly sincere and…trying [his] best,” the sentiment wrapped in a melody so earnest that there is no choice but to believe him.
Beatty laying his armour down the only way he can, through swirling the intricacies of his feelings into ballad, pays off beautifully as the track list runs it course. On ‘Too Many Ways,’ a personal standout of mine, our protagonist is unabashedly in love. He is no longer uncomfortably encased in insecurity and guilt when his lover leaves, for he knows “without a worry in [his] mind” that whilst he’s on his plane back home, his man is “blowing kisses to the sky” to see him off.
As the eventual denouement approaches, we see Beatty off ourselves through his self-actualisation in ‘Fleur De Lis’. He knows now what he must do to evolve past who he once was: he must “pull…out all of the dried and dead weeds” of his past in favour of “the lavender, the marigolds and violets” of his present. With true love in his life, Beatty can bloom; with this record in our ears, perhaps so can we all.
“Ryan Beatty performing in March 2019” by Tuckerstclair is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.