Ryan Beatty

One Liner: A BROCKHAMPTON collaborator making truly pretty indie folk and pop
Wikipedia Genre: Alternative R&B, alt-pop, indie pop, indie folk
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 12
Day: Saturday - WE1 @ 3:30; WE2 @ 5:30
Both Weekends.

Beatbox Stage

Thoughts:  Back when BROCKHAMPTON was a thing, I was pretty damn into those dudes.  When they came to ACL, I loved it, and really enjoyed some of the songs on those Saturation albums.  Still do.  Well, this dude was part of the party, but he was mainly part of the songs that got on my nerves.  Which is SO RUDE to write, but my honest opinion of Brockhampton was that the R&B singing songs couldn't hold a candle to the solid rap tracks.

So, he came up covering songs on YouTube, and got popular enough because of those videos that Ryan Seacrest premiered his debut music video in 2012 and then his debut EP was premiered on Radio Disney.  He was more of a clean-cut teen heart-throb, and was named to an AT&T commercial series to combat texting and driving.  He chafed at the boyish image and fired his management in 2013.  A few years later, when the Brockhampton crew moved from San Marcos, he started collaborating with them and was on a few of the Saturation album songs.  He also worked with Kevin Abstract and Tyler, The Creator during this time.

Interesting thing, he has four albums, but I swear I have been cruising through the catalog multiple times.  Either these songs are short or Spotify is messing with me.  His voice is lovely - like a Harry Styles-when-he-is-imitating-a-70's-crooner thing.  And some of the songs are genuinely pretty.  I just imagined what it would be like at the festival though - these are pretty ballad-type songs.  Heart-felt falsetto tinged tunes about love and loss.  Not sure what that will look like in a 100+ degree field full of drunk and high college kids excited to see Charlie XCX.  Whatever.  The most streamed song is from his post-teen-heartthrob album Boy in Jeans, from 2018, and is called "Haircut."  25.1 million streams.

That feels like the BROCKHAMPTON ear music where they concentrated on the visuals as well as the tunes.  His recent album is less dance-y pop, and more of the adult contemporary stuff.  "Secret Language" is the top track off of his 2026 album Sweet Fortune.  1.8 million streams.

Gone is the bleach-blonde, and the writhing around in a bed, and the synth backing, exchanged for natural hair, random jogging, and a gentle rock background.  But do you hear how damn pretty his voice is?  Beautiful.  And I dig that swaggery little guitar solo int he middle.  But it just feels like I am listening to 70's AM gold, not a guy who is going to get a crowd to go wild at a Festival.  "Phantom" is the album opener on that new disc and the piano sounds like an interpolation of "Mama I'm Comin' Home" and then the schmaltzy big band arrives.  Really nice album.

Spotify just transitioned me into a song by Jackie Evans, which sounds very much like this guy, and also like Carole King.  There is some really pretty music out there!