Beabadoobee bites into a wide range of musical genres, familiar and foreign on her 3rd studio record

Graphic by Sofia Giarrusso

by sam shipman

Beatrice Kristi Laus, more commonly known as beabadoobee, announced her third studio album This is How Tomorrow Moves, alongside the single “Take a Bite” this past May.

A couple of months and singles later, beadadoobee released the highly anticipated album produced by her guitarist Jacob Bugden, as well as the legendary Rick Rubin. During the production of the record, beadbadoobee worked in Rubin’s Shangri-La Studio in Hawaii. 

This collaboration comes as a complete surprise, even to beabadoobee herself. In an interview with ELLE in May, beabadoobee stated “I just didn’t think an opportunity like that would ever happen to me in my career.” 

If you’re unfamiliar with the name Rick Rubin, odds are you are familiar with his production work, which spans from Public Enemy, to Metallica with Johnny Cash and Adele somewhere in the middle. 

His Shangri-La studio is a musical landmark that seems to make an artist’s creative ability rise to another level, beadbadoobee has also expressed in the same interview with ELLE that she was able to thrive there incredibly well, “I just feel like it benefited the record so much, and I’m just so glad I decided to do this, because a big part of me was very scared, and then I just jumped in.” 

When it comes to the music on the record, Rubin’s is noticeable. It’s the strongest produced record in her catalog by a long shot. Each song feels incredibly personal, but not in the same way her two previous records did, this time fueled by new and daring experimentations that allow her sound to flourish. This is expressed through Rubin’s style of producing, which is based more on feeling and emotion as opposed to trying to make a perfect album for radio or an album that flows well front to back. 

This is How Tomorrow Moves is all over the place which is usually a jarring artistic choice if intentional and can lead to an album feeling bloated and uninspired if not done correctly. 

In beabadoobee’s case, it creates a collection of songs that reflects her struggles coming to terms with getting older, interacting with romantic partners, coming into womanhood, her identity, and what inspires her as a songwriter in a 14-song tracklist that can be played on mix while still fully digesting her current mental state as an artist and as a person regardless in what order you hear the record. 

beabadoobee “finds comfort and familiarity in chaos…”. While this comment was in reference to the opening track and first single “Take a Bite,” it could be applied to the entire record.

Taking a dive into the chaotic tracklist, you find a slew of tracks that range from some of beabadoobee’s tightest songs to date like “Beaches,” “Take a Bite,” and “Real Man” that hit every mark of indie rock and poppy grunge-esque sounds that you’d expect from the collab with Rubin and master of bringing artists out of their shell, to some lower moments like “Post” and “Ever Seen” that fall short of having the same snappy or emotional impact as the record’s highs offer.  

The opening track “Take a Bite” has her letting the instrumentals carry her voice through a new-age alt-rock track, most likely taking inspiration from Elliott Smith and Pavement, some artists she claims to be a super fan of, Smith directly being referenced on the record’s closing track. 

On the other end of the spectrum, “Coming Home” is beautifully simplistic with delicate guitar strokes accompanying her story of coming home to a loved one. As the song progresses a bridge of horns carries beabadoobee to the final verse of the song where she promises her lover: “This time I won’t be late.”

The record bounces between songs where the vocals and lyrics are the main event that make the listener think about beabadoobee on a personal level or songs where the instruments bear the weight making instant kick-ass classics that make the listener want to drive around blaring the tracks with the windows down, or might just enrage them enough to text their ex in a fit of “I told you so’s.” 

Most of the tracks hit hard on first listen, but others like “Post” and “Ever Seen” don’t have the same snappy chorus or instrumental sections to carry the song into something very engaging if you aren’t a super fan, those tracks might be overshadowed by higher points on the record. “Ever Seen” has a very engaging drum fill throughout the song but while the main chorus (“Said I had the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen”) is genuine and endearing, but takes more than a few listens to stick. Or songs like “Post” which tell a compelling story, have pretty vocals, and solid instrumentals, but fall short of songs on the album that has a similar gimmick but just do the whole concept a little bit better (like “Beaches”). 

While opinions on a song-by-song basis are completely subjective, it's foolish to label any of the songs on the record as “filler” as Ron Harris does in his review of the record. Regardless of what the listener thinks about each song, it’s clear that Beabadoobee cares about each song on the record, whether you check out each clip on Spotify which has Beabadoobee explaining the story behind all the songs or her two-hour interview with Rick Rubin where they talk about the creative process of the making record. 

Even if the album isn’t perfect, Beabadoobee’s fans will surely flock to her upcoming tour ready to scream the lyrics to whatever she plays from her catalog.

At that moment, fans will most likely agree each song from “Coffee” to “This Is How It Went” is a raw reflection of how far Beadbadoobie has come.

This is How Tomorrow Moves is not about the fans screaming alongside beabadoobee’s live performance, it’s about emotionally giving it her all.

In beabadoobee’s conversation with Rubin, she shows him the cover of the album for the first time, depicting her clenching her face with her arms clenched tight to her chest.

As Rubin looked at the cover on his phone he said, “you look like you’re about to really spill your guts, this is like, ‘I mean it.’”