(Originally posted on Luna Paper)
Matty Healy just can’t help himself.
After getting his greasy fingerprints all over her 2021 EP, Our Extended Play, The 1975 frontman manages to creep beneath the surface of Beabadoobee’s latest album, Beatopia.
Sure, Healy only co-wrote two of the album’s tracks, but the production has that 1975 DNA running through it.
You can hear it in the scratchy synthesisers and punchy beats of ‘10:36,’ and in the twilit shoegaze of ‘See You Soon.’ The sprawling Midwest emo of ‘Pictures of You’ features such Healyesque lines as ‘She reminded me that God starts with a capital/But I don’t think I could do it all’ and even contributes backing vocals, while on the twee, jazz-inflected final track, ‘You’re Here, That’s the Thing,’ he sings along with the British-Filipino singer: ‘When the lights go down, don’t say I didn’t warn ya/I don’t think that’s legal in the state of California.’
‘I wrote the verses, and he showed me his chorus idea,’ Bea Kristi explains (via Genius). ‘I was like, ‘What do you mean by it?’ He said, ‘You know what? I don’t know, but it’s really fun.’ It was like, ‘Okay, go with it. It doesn’t really matter what’s illegal in California. It could be anything.’
If there’s a word to describe this record, it’s twee. Charmingly so at times, but painfully so at others. The longer it goes on, the more it begins to drag.
While her 2020 debut, Fake It Flowers, threw itself headlong into scuzzy 90s nostalgia, the world of Beatopia is soundtracked by the light and breezy acoustic pop of the late 90s/early 00s.
‘Sunny Day’ has a slick, warm groove, taking its inspiration from the mellow stylings of Nelly Furtado and Corinne Bailey Rae. ‘The Perfect Pair’ is what would probably happen if Michelle Branch did a soulful, teasing Bossa Nova track, which is exactly as enticing as it sounds. ‘Broken CD’ also adds a dash of Branch, along with a little M2M. Y’know, from the Pokemon movie soundtrack? ‘Mirror Mirror’ is still a fuckin’ jam, btw. With its soft, willowy dance between guitar and strings, ‘Ripples’ is practically a Disney ballad.
‘Lovesong’ is equally saccharine, all twinkling pirouettes and orchestral swells, while ‘Fairy Song,’ of course, lives up to its title, its dreamy, sun-kissed twang caught adrift in a hazy sea of reverb. ‘Tinkerbell is Overrated,’ (featuring PinkPantheress) is magical for the first minute or so before the drum n’ bass kicks in, turning the track into some TikTok-ready soundbite. Only ‘Don’t Get the Deal’ (featuring Bea’s guitarist, Jacob Bogden) and first single ‘Talk’ seem to call back to the sludgy grunge of Fake It Flowers.
Beatopia finds Bea still trying to make sense of who she is as an artist, which is to be expected from a 22 year old woman who was catapulted to fame just a few years ago off the back of a viral TikTok hit. It has a sweet childlike innocence and wonder, its rootsy, more orchestral touches sublime and the youthful angst a little more introspective this time around.
But in the process, the singer ends up stripping away the scrappy, anxious charm that made Fake It Flowers such a joy to listen to in the first place. The songs are pretty enough (‘The Perfect Pair,’ ‘Sunny Day’ and ‘Talk’ especially), but also rather forgettable, lacking the immediacy and grit of earlier singles like ‘Worth It’ or ‘Care.’ It’s also kind of ironic that Beatopia is meant to describe Bea’s world, yet longtime collaborators like Matty Healy manage to infiltrate it and turn it into yet about 1975 side project (Well, parts of it, at least).
Beabadoobee might get lost in her own world on Beatopia, but there’s still time yet to find her way…