(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Ride formed in Oxford in 1988, right in the midst of the dream-pop, shoegazing, and "Madchester" boom. Just in their twenties, Mark Gardener (vocals) and Andy Bell (guitar) began the saga that would lead them to success with a series of songs characterized by guitar distortions, simple choruses, and danceable beats, gradually embellishing the vocal harmonies and hardening the sound: Chelsea Girl and Close My Eyes (on the debut EP, January 1990, Creation), Like A Daydream (on the EP Play, April 1990).

Ride’s timbral and atmospheric explorations culminate in the polished sound of Nowhere (Creation, 1990). Polar Bear, the most psychedelic of the set, Nowhere, the only blatantly dissonant track, and especially Paralysed, almost classical in its formal perfection, represent a refined style that is no longer just a type of music but an abstract definition of that type of music. The raw material comes from acid rock (Seagull even recalls the hippie epics of It's A Beautiful Day, and Decay exaggerates the sound effects used in psychedelic folk-rock), but it is reworked to neutralize the emotional component entirely. Thus, there is no melody worth noting, but perhaps the goal was not to craft songs per se, but to compose pieces for studio effects. Only Vapour Trail hits a decent chorus, and Taste ventures into a slightly compelling cadence (in the style of the Stone Roses).

Unfamiliar (on the EP Today Forever) and the long Leave Them All Behind precede the second album, Going Blank Again (Sire, 1992), on which the pop episodes, especially Twisterella and Making Judy Smile, stand out, confirming that, stripped of the sound effects, it is still the usual British light pop. Time Of Her Time and Cool Your Boots are at least mature and professional songs. But they are still just songs, despite the promises of the first album.

Abandoning the background of guitar drones, clichéd stereotypes bubble to the surface on the third album, Carnival Of Light (Creation, 1994). The turn to commercial pop yields very little (Birdman). More complex compositions, like the instrumental Rolling Thunder and the lengthy Moonlight Medicine, retain very little of the creative chaos of the first album.

The band members are aging and are in desperate search of a personality. Tarantula (1996) pays homage to American roots, whether in the Southern boogie jolts of Black Nite Crash, the Blonde On Blonde-style epic of Sunshine, the Byrds-inspired cosmic ramble of Walk On Water, the blues-rock of The Dawn Patrol, the organ-driven soul-rock of Deep Inside My Pocket, the delicate acoustic ballad of Castle On The Hill, or the atmospheric "country & swing" of Ride The Wind, and even the psychedelic touches of Dead Man.

Ride never had particularly original ideas, but they fused everything that was fashionable the day they formed. In this way, however, they managed to invent a genre that is immune not to pain, but to pleasure. In that sense, their work marked the culmination (or the nadir, depending on taste) of the trajectory of British retro-psychedelia.

The guitarist Andy Bell later formed Hurricane #1 (Sire, 1997) with singer Alex Lowe and bassist Will Pepper of the Thee Hypnotics. Songs like Lucky Man, Step Into My World, and Chain Reaction evoke timid followers of Oasis, while Just Another Illusion sounds like it could have come from a Stone Roses album, and Monday Afternoon, Stand in Line, and Faces in a Dream are inspired by the La's.