Since uploading her first demo ‘Coffee’ on SoundCloud in 2017, and later being sampled on Powfu’s lo-fi anthem ‘Death Bed’, it’s been a headlong ride to Beabadoobee’s much-anticipated debut LP. From her roots as an indie bedroom-pop sensation whose hushed dreamy sound departed as a viral Tiktok sensation, Beabadoobee has come into her own in her dazzling debut LP effort Fake It Flowers. Perfected during Covid-19 isolation, Bea brings a lush blend of late 90s grunge, confessional guitar-heavy indie-pop and occasional shoegazing, making for a nostalgic and transfixing listen.
Bea Kristi, now 20, tells her own coming-of-age story as she delves into the trials and tribulations of romance, heartbreak and navigating the darker side of the teenage experience with an unmistakably 90s edge. Lead single and LP opener ‘Care’ has Bea in her element of effortless soft vocals, then breaking into a cathartic guitar-heavy rage. As Bea puts it herself, it has an ‘end of 90s movie vibe, like you’re driving down a highway’.
This same signature of Bea’s is carried through in ‘Dye it Red’, ‘Worth It’ and ‘Sorry’. Straying from her usual subdued vocals, the heavy ‘Charlie Brown’ is reminiscent of Pixies’ late 80s track ‘Break my Body’ in its force, with an added transcendency. A departure from her hypnotic 2019 release ‘Space Cadet’, Beabadoobee, while clearly having outgrown her bedroom pop debut, still maintains at the same level of confessional lyrical intimacy on tracks like ‘Back To Mars’.
Bea’s shift to a heavier sound both vocally and instrumentally is paired with her quintessential coming of age diary-confession lyric writing, a fusion found in the 90s with The Cardigans and Letters to Cleo, but reimagined through contemporary pop-adorned eyes. Bea has paved her way in hushed musings and soft introspection but has grown into her own self-mastery of loud rock raging in harmony with her ballad-esque polished love ruminations on ‘Horen Sarrison’.
With an ode to her acoustic inception on quarantine track ‘How Was Your Day?’ and the lulling ‘Further Away’, it’s ever reminiscent of melancholic indie heavy-weight Elliot Smith and the ethereal vocals of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval, which Bea has cited as some of her primary influences. Beabadoobee has beautifully reconciled the dreamy, hazy and firmly folk acoustic sound of 2018’s EP release ‘Patched Up’ with the powerful rock rager chorus line on ‘Charlie Brown’, featuring her prized borrowed Jazzmaster guitar, which has been played on Talking Heads records.
Beabadoobee’s Fake It Flowers unapologetically sets the stage for the revival of 90s and 00s inspired sound this year, captured by herself and her rising Gen Z and Millennial pop-influenced contemporaries like Snail Mail. Fake It Flowers captures the naivety and door-slamming angst of teen years, which is fresh enough in Bea’s mind to express authentically, but far away enough for retrospective regret on ‘Sorry’, about the realisation of her mistakes in a friendship and watching this person fade away.
Fake It Flowers is cinematic in its honest telling of the many chapters of Bea’s teenage years, but hints at a lyrical maturity and introspection that we can expect to see grow to influence her writing in the future. As Bea has said, ‘It’s a record for girls to cry and dance and get angry to’, taking after female indie rage influences such as Alanis Morrissette and Dolores O’ Riordan. A perfectly accessible and nostalgic album, Fake It Flowers is best paired with an air guitar and mirror in your bedroom.
