Young star with album

Beabadoobee: From bedroom to superstar

Clearly more mature and versatile: On the third album "This Is How Tomorrow Moves", Beabadoobee breaks all shackles.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Virgin Music, Jules Moskovtchenko)

Beatrice Laus aka Beabadoobee quietly approached the big pop and rock world from her London bedroom. Her third album "This Is How Tomorrow Moves" is the final emancipation from youthful innocence and a self-confident leap into the mainstream without cutting her indie roots.

As much as some people try to separate the different generations from one another or to stir them up musically, this is not very successful in practice. The best example: Beabadoobee. Behind the now 24-year-old Filipino, who grew up and matured musically in London, is one of the greatest TikTok music prodigies of modern times, but the then 17-year-old grew up with posters of indie heroes Pavement and Elliott Smith in her nursery. Her first single "Coffee" earned her a contract with the alternative indie label Dirty Hit. Two years later, she paid direct tribute to the Pavement frontman with the song "I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus". Everything that came after 2020 was like a rollercoaster ride that has only ever gone in one direction: steeply upwards.

Initial spark as a sample supplier
Withherdebut album "Fake It Flowers", Beabadoobee swam a little in the wake of the great Billie Eilish hype and made her way into England's top 10 charts quietly and deliberately, with bedroom production and a lot of calm songwriting. By this time, the advance praise was ready for the picking. Laus received the "NME Radar Award", landed on the BBC's prestigious and often career-defining "Sound Of..." list and was among the nominees for the BRIT Award as a "Rising Star". More importantly, Canadian rapper Powfu used a sample from Beabadoobee's underground hit and debut single "Coffee" for his track "Death Bed", which went viral on TikTok. Anyone familiar with the seemingly impenetrable jungle of the platform knows that this was the initial spark for his own career.

It was followed in 2022 by "Beatopia", a pleasing but even more successful successor that even pushed the likeable musician into the top 5 of the charts in her British homeland. She toured live as the support act for various artists such as The 1975, Clairo and Halsey. The crowning glory followed soon after - in 2023, she had the opportunity to take to the stage as the opening act for pop queen Taylor Swift. By this time at the latest, Beabadoobee had also conquered the mainstream pop world, to which she is becoming increasingly accessible musically. Over the years, the sound of college indie rock with sweater folk influences has evolved enormously and, as is part and parcel of the musical "TikTok generation", genre boundaries are just obsolete walls that need to be broken down as well and as forcefully as possible.

The credibility expands
When Laus goes into the studio, anything is possible. Her childlike, innocent voice goes very well with the distorted guitars and quirky pedals, but she can also perform competently in front of a beat or soft piano. Somewhat unfortunate in terms of release timing in the middle of summer, Beabadoobee is now releasing her groundbreaking third album "This Is How Tomorrow Moves" and is finally taking the inevitable step into the adult world. The teenage angst of the two early works can only be guessed at in nuances, because Laus has now shed her inner shackles. The Taylor Swift experience has probably shown her once and for all that pop catchiness and format radio potential do not necessarily have to be terms that are detrimental to the credibility of the career she has built up so far.

The third album offers the artist the opportunity to take stock, to look back and reflect more closely. About herself, her own music and the weird world we all live in. With such a wide range of emotions, Beabadoobee could easily have lost the thread and got carried away with too many weird details, but the inner coherence is one of the album's greatest strengths. Producer Rick Rubin, in whose Shangri-La Studios in Malibu the album was recorded, is partly responsible for the courage to try something new. The extravagant artist chose unconventional paths in preparation for Beabadoobee. Instead of listening to demo tapes of the band's songs, he asked Laus and his cohorts to first play the songs on acoustic guitar to get a more accurate picture.

Maturation and realization
The experience in Malibu was immediately conveyed in the song "Beaches" - not everyone comes into Rubin's musical living room just like that. "California", "Coming Home" and "Everything I Want" convey the feeling that the musician has found exactly the lightness for a more pop approach in the sunshine state that she lacked in comparatively cool London. A basic rock sound still carries a fucked-up mood through the album, but Beabadoobee has shed any form of outwardly celebratory indie coolness and now opens up her colorful, wide-ranging and highly active heart for the first time in full bloom. Songs like "Take A Bite" are knee-deep in the 90s, while others can clearly be felt and heard as products of the present. The maturing process also includes the lyrical realization that you can't always be right and that you have to accept that you're treading on thin ice by proclaiming half-knowledge. "This Is How Tomorrow Moves" is the most light-footed and at the same time most exciting pop/rock record of this summer. It's just a shame that the Austrian live debut won't happen for the time being.