What’s New Weekly – Beabadoobee

By Bec Legato

Most people when December 31st rolls into the new year, make resolutions like losing weight, finding more opportunities to be happy, or getting a job. My New Years Resolution was to discover a new artist each week and listen to most of their discography throughout that week. I started off the year with Mitski, and I have discovered artists as popular as Mother Mother and as obscure as Flight Facilities. I’ll usually take recommendations from friends, or look into an artist who I’ve only scratched the surface of, having only listened to one or two of their songs that are on the more popular side. 

This week, I listened to beabadoobee. I had already heard her most notable songs like “Coffee,” “death bed (coffee for your head),” and “She Plays Bass” but I had never listened to her music that wasn’t easily accessible on TikTok. 

If you like Phoebe Bridgers, Snail Mail, or Soccer Mommy, beabadoobee is a perfect fit for you. Most of her music is on the slower side and speaks primarily of either mental health or her long-term relationship with her boyfriend Søren. Beabadoobee has said that she wanted her music to either make people dance or cry, really just writing music in order to cause some kind of emotional reaction. She has a soft voice that finds those deepest insecurities and appeals to them. 

The first song that beabadoobee ever wrote is one of her most notable songs, “Coffee.” It was written as a love song for her boyfriend Søren and making coffee for him in the morning. Powfu took a sample of “Coffee” and used it in “death bed” which was originally released in 2019 and reuploaded in 2020. It’s a slow acoustic that doesn’t fit into a certain tempo but commendable to note that the first song beabadoobee ever wrote was used in a song that has 900 million streams on Spotify. 

Beabadoobee’s debut album, Lice, is my personal favorite of her album’s. It’s a good introduction to her kind of music and it definitely shows beabadoobee developing her own music style and giving herself a brand. One of the most notable songs of hers from this album is “Bobby” which is a profile of a girl who was losing motivation in life and began to question whether life was worth the effort. Beabadoobee perfectly ties up the story in the end when she starts the outro with, “Bobby was fifteen when she knew that some things would last.” It goes against the repeated beginning of “Bobby was fourteen” and then proceeding to represent that feeling of being stuck, and having her mind riot against her. 

Looking at some of her more popular songs, “If You Want To” in particular, breaks away from the overused theme of singing about failed relationships and talks instead about her struggles in sleeping and dealing with insomnia. This is personally one of my favorite songs of hers because most recent music just focuses on failed relationships and it’s interesting to hear a song that finally breaks away from that idea and talking instead about something that a lot of teens in particular deal with. 

If you’re interested in checking out beabadoobee more, here is a link to the best of her music on Spotify:

Sources: Genuis Lyrics | Youtube