Review: Beabadoobee - Our Extended Play [EP]
Beebadoobee
Our Extended Play
A stop-gap EP between records, whilst a fantastic listen it finds Bea undergoing a sonic identity crisis.
★★★★
Beebadoobee had her impressive rise from garage (or should that be bedroom) grunger to household rock star stunted by the pandemic. Lockdown restrictions kicking in just as she concluded her supporting slot for The 1975. Her debut ‘Fake It Flowers’ eventually releasing during the lockdown last year rather than being celebrated in dark sweaty venues as it deserved.
‘Our Extended Play’ is intended to bridge the gap between her first studio release and what’s to come. It interestingly finds Bea at a crossroads, Rapper Poku’s hit ‘death bed’ which is centered around a sample of Bea’s early 2017 track ‘coffee’ has an incredulous one billion streams on Spotify. The chilled-out, adjusted sample however is a sharp departure from the raucous prickly sound of Bea. ‘Our Extended Play’ then feels like a conscious effort to meld those two worlds together, co-written and produced by Matt Healy and George Daniels of labelmates The 1975, it finds Bea’s vocals at points softer than ever, over 90s styled indie-pop melodies.
Opener ‘Last Day On Earth’ evokes the energy of Bea’s wooly bucket hat on the cover, with a jangly guitar line in the style of New Radicals or The La’s, that carefree attitude translates to the chorus “Shoop-doop, shoop-doo, badoobadoo, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”. It’s a fun-loving throwback to a beloved era of indie-pop and a seemingly genius and in hindsight obvious direction for Bea to take. ‘Cologne’ is more in line with the grungier bedroom aesthetic of her debut album, more akin to Wolf Alice with an infectious guitar line.
The influence of the aforementioned 1975 can be felt noticeably on the final two tracks. ‘Animal Noises’ is a Phoebe Bridgers, Clairo approach to an acoustic ballad, the twangs and falsetto ‘ahhss’ are specifically in the vein of Bridgers ‘Graceland Too’. The writing meanwhile heralds the wistful yearnings that characterize a typical Healy ballad. Closer ‘He Gets Me So High’ was unsurprisingly a 1975 track originally, written by Healy with the pronoun she in mind. This is notable due to how much this still sounds like one of their tracks (albeit mixed together with Coldplay’s ‘Strawberry Swing’), it feels like Bea is covering a demo rather than making her own mark with her music.
This is ultimately the only issue, both the closing track and the EP as a whole are fantastic. It’s a great and swift tour-de-force of the varying styles, sounds, and talents of beabadoobee. Saying that, as a listener, I’m left wondering… is this Bea? Her debut was so assuredly confident and unashamedly sounding like her that she has become a little lost in the mix. Whether that be from the heavy 90s indie-pop influence (so much so that it borderlines on copyright infringement) or from the heavy hands of The 1975. The combination of their production and Bea’’s delicate falsetto is certainly a winning one but ends up feeling like they’re feeding her scrapped demos to work on.
Without a doubt this is an essential listen, I just hope Bea builds on this new sound and shines through as an artist in her own right again on her follow-up.