Album #348: beabadoobee – Fake It Flowers

• Released: 2020
• Origin: London, England
• Label: Dirty Hit
• Best Track: Together

It’s strange how although this blog is testament to how much time I spend listening to and following music, I can be totally out of touch with what’s going on. Filipino-born Londoner Beatrice Laus, aka beabadoobee, had a top 10 album in October with an indie/bedroom pop album that seems a lot like something I would listen to. I hadn’t even heard of her until this weekend!

Incredibly, I’ve read that until three years ago, she didn’t even own a guitar. In that time, she’s not only taught herself to play one (an achievement in itself as I’ve never really managed it) and now, at the age of 20, she’s put together an impressive collection of angsty, relatable songs.

It’s well produced too, which does it a lot of favours. No doubt it’s a pop album, but it retains a fuzzy, lo-fi aesthetic that stops it ever getting too twee and childlike.

Favourites include the cutting ‘Dye It Red’, the wistful ‘Further Away’ and best of all, the classic quiet verse, loud chorus of ‘Together’.

As is usually the recipe for success in albums of this genre, the songs are pretty simple, but their quality lies in their intamacy and sincerity. I like this album a lot.