Beabadoobee recently released her fourth studio album, “Pylon”. To her fans, it serves as a significant departure from the styles of her first three studio albums that she’s released since 2020.
While “Pylon” serves as quite a bit of a natural evolution of previous albums, the artist’s overall style has shifted quite a bit to be more grunge and alt-rock than her previous albums. Yet with this shift, the album still feels very distinctly like a Beabadoobee album that listeners all over the world have come to know and love.
One of the first songs on the album, “Sun Has Set”, showcased the greatest evolution into this new style that Beabadoobee is experimenting with. It felt very reminiscent of 2000s female rock artists, such as Paramore and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
“Write Me A Letter” most encapsulates the sad girl rock autumn vibe that Beabadoobee was intending to encapsulate with this album. It was the perfect combination of the new style she’s experimenting with and the sound that her listeners know and love.
In the song, she sings about her mental health deteriorating, themes that are also addressed in one of her previous and most popular albums, ”Beatopia.”
One of her singles from the album, “Memories”, has proven to be one of the songs that fans absolutely adore, as it addresses those relatable fuzzy feelings and the hope that comes with new relationships. The song also felt quite uplifting in both its themes and melodies.
Even though Beabadoobee is not known to collaborate with other artists on her songs, she had a change of heart this time. She chose to collaborate with Hayley Williams of “Paramore” on the song “Nothing to Prove”.
Something that is really interesting about “Pylon” is how the influence of artists like Williams reveals itself not just in their collaboration, but in other songs as well on the album. This song almost felt like a bit of a tribute and her way of saying thank you to so many legendary female alt-rock artists, including Williams, all while being served up with gorgeous harmonies between two iconic artists.
Towards the end of the album, Bea’s greatest focus became one thing: lyricism. The last two songs, “Despite That” and “Satellite”, focus on exactly that as her way of closing out an incredible album.
Even though “Despite That” was on the shorter side, coming in at only one minute and twenty-nine seconds long, Bea still found a way to connect even her shortest songs to her final song on the album, “Satellite”.
“Satellite” felt like the perfect song to conclude the album. It has just enough of that sad rock girl autumn vibe that she used so consistently throughout the album, all while staying true to her original style.
Combined with her incredible lyricism that she used throughout multiple of the songs, it’s clear why she chose this song to serve as the conclusion to an incredible senior studio album.
It is easy to say that this album holds its own compared to previous albums. Even though it experiments to what would arguably be a somewhat new style for her, the timing of the release of this particular album is incredible.
For many listeners, an unfortunate but true reality is that with colder weather comes more negative emotions, aka seasonal depression. By giving listeners someone to relate to, let alone with a full studio album, Beabadoobee shows listeners that they are not alone.
They have tons of songs that they can now turn to to help them cope with all of their emotions, whether it be the good emotions, the bad ones, or the ones that fall in between.
