beabadoobee Has Already Figured Out That Mess Can Be a Style
· 5min
If you have been paying even half-attention to guitar-leaning new music over the last year, beabadoobee has been impossible to ignore, and rightly so. By late January 2020, she had already released four EPs across 2018 and 2019, including Patched Up, Loveworm, and Space Cadet, and she was part of the BBC Sound of 2020 longlist conversation too.
What makes Bea interesting is not just that she writes catchy songs with fuzz around the edges. There are a lot of people doing guitar nostalgia right now, and not all of them deserve the attention they are getting. What separates beabadoobee is that her music doesn’t feel like a museum of influences. Yes, the ‘90s references are there. Yes, the soft-loud dynamics, the slacker textures, the half-dreaming and half-spiraling atmosphere are all part of the package. But the emotional tone is her own. It feels diaristic without being precious.
That is a harder thing to pull off than people think. The current wave of internet-born indie can sometimes mistake vulnerability for vagueness. A mumbled line, a washed-out guitar, a slightly grainy visual, and suddenly everyone is calling it intimate. beabadoobee actually earns that intimacy. Her songs often feel like they were written before the performance voice kicked in, which is why they land. They do not sound heavily translated for public consumption.
I also think her instincts as a songwriter are stronger than some of the discourse around her has allowed. Because she emerged through scenes that are quick to aestheticize softness, some people seem to hear only the vibe. I hear structure. I hear hooks that know exactly when to arrive. I hear someone who understands that a short song still needs architecture. Even when the recordings feel loose, the songwriting usually isn’t.
The appeal of beabadoobee, to me, is that she seems unafraid of contradiction. There is sweetness in the music, but also petulance. Tenderness, but also boredom. Romantic longing, but also the kind of self-protective shrug that young people get very good at performing when they do not want to look too earnest. That tonal mix makes the songs feel lived in.
The risk, of course, is that she becomes trapped inside the version of herself that listeners most quickly recognize: the lo-fi, wistful, guitar-girl figure with impeccable instincts for mood. That version is compelling, but it would be a shame if it became a box. The real question is whether she can keep the emotional immediacy while letting the sound world grow sharper, stranger, or larger. I suspect she can.
What I would say right now is simple: do not reduce beabadoobee to “promising.” That word often gets used when critics can tell someone is good but have not yet figured out how good. She is already past promising. She has presence, taste, and that most useful of emerging-artist qualities: she knows how to make a song feel like it matters deeply to her without begging you to feel the same.
Which, of course, makes you feel it anyway.