To most, beabadoobee will be known for her appearance on the billion-stream track ‘Death Bed (Coffee For Your Head)’, which sampled her first single ‘Coffee’. Beatopia is beabadoobee’s sophomore record, following the more pop punk direction of her debut LP Fake It Flowers. Bea’s latest album has her travel back to the eponymous Beatopia, the childhood fantasy world she created while feeling alienated after emigrating to London. Bea has plundered it for sonic treasures, and this dip into that world feels like the perfect guitar pop soundtrack to summer.
The album opens with ‘Beatopia Cultsong’, a hopeful synth-pad and rhythm based opener that sounds like a group of friends having fun. That is precisely how the track was made, with Bea and her friends spontaneously recording it while hanging out one night. The array of sounds on this track alone give showcase the variety that is to come over the course of Beatopia, with its pivots between more acoustic cuts and full early 2000’s pop punk.
One of the best on the album is undeniably ‘See You Soon’, the arena-ready, anthemic pop banger with a soaring chorus that can already be heard being belted out throughout the US where beabadoobee has just finished supporting Halsey on tour. If you rob yourself of the album experience and only listen to one song from Beatopia, make it this song.
Though a nerdy point to many, the sequencing on this album is exceptional. With such a mishmash of genres and styles it would be easy for the album to feel scattered, but Bea’s early-2000’s nostalgia colours everything, and the ordering of the songs makes the album feel like a true sonic journey. with the special string-led ballad ‘Ripples’ bringing us back down to earth after ‘See You Soon’. Black Country, New Road and Jockstrap member Georgia Ellery’s violin provides the instrumentation with typical deft taste. This one has all the makings of a classic to soundtrack TikToks and shorts throughout the year.
Following the new trend started by Billie Eilish’s bossa nova track on her last album, Bea’s bossa nova track ‘The Perfect Pair’ has a great bass tone handled by Bea’s great producer Iain Berryman, better known for his work with Hozier and Wolf Alice, and sees Bea taking some influence from Corinne Bailey Rae, as she does elsewhere on the LP, specifically the track ‘Sunny Day.’
The two sides of beabadoobee are most evident in the shift between lead single ‘Talk’, and ‘Lovesong’. ‘Talk’ is a great pop punk track, picking up where Fake It Flowers left off, with a Blink-182-style drum intro before some guitars arrive to power the track, over which Bea adds to the nostalgia, paraphrasing Avril Lavigne and asking ‘why’d you have to be so complicated?’ ‘Lovesong’ harks back to the acoustic bedroom sounds of beabadoobea’s early material, but has grown, developing beautiful textures swelling with strings and horns.
The first of two collaborations on the album, ‘Pictures of You’ with The 1975’s Matty Healy sees Bea pushing herself into uncharted territory, stepping uneasily onto Healy’s turf, not quite fitting the sound of the rest of the album, perhaps as it sounds more that a little reminiscent of The 1975’s other work. ‘Tinkerbell is Overrated’ with rising star PinkPantheress fairs better, and features close harmonies between the two over a fast electronic drumkit and Bea musing on her innocence, reflecting that ‘I’m not a woman in my room, I’m just a girl instead.’
The album closes with the easy-going acoustic track ‘You’re Here That’s The Thing’, which bounces along like a slower and more melancholic Randy Newman. beabadoobea succeeds in painting early-00’s Beatopia with just enough detail to allow us to put ourselves back in that time (for those of us who remember it!), and reminds us it’s okay to take the time for a little nostalgia once in a while.
Rating: 8/10
