Beatopia

''Beatopia'' is the second studio album by Filipino-British singer and songwriter Beabadoobee. It was released on British independent label Dirty Hit on 15 July 2022. It features collaborations with singer PinkPantheress, Matty Healy and George Daniel of the 1975, Cavetown, and Jack Steadman of Bombay Bicycle Club.

Critical reception

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 78, based on 16 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". In a three-star review, Rachel Aroesti of ''The Guardian'' said that ''Beatopia''s "crowd-pleasing combination of poppy euphoria, laidback cool and often rather generic lyrics tends not to leave a lasting impression of much beyond stylishly executed nostalgia". Arielle Gordon of '' Pitchfork'' criticised the lyrical content of the album as being "often more form than function", though in a mixed review for ''PopMatters'' Jay Honeycomb noted that the lyrics deal with the challenges of human intimacy. In a more positive review, ''Kerrang!'' characterised ''Beatopia'' as a progression from Beabadoobee's debut album with "more diversity, more complexity and less care paid to the genres it falls within", marking an artistic evolution. Similarly, Hollie Geraghty writing for ''NME'' sees "the seeds that were planted in ''Fake It Flowers'' not only blossom, but inhabit an entirely different world" with ''Beatopia''. In a mixed review for ''The Telegraph'', Kate French-Morris wrote, "Kristi's music may sound fresh to the ears of those born this side of the millennium, but it's rehashed, scrubbed-up, 1990s alt-rock to everyone else, so well-cribbed she sounds like a fictional artist dreamed up to soundtrack a teen movie." Writing for ''The Line of Best Fit'', John Amen scored the project 8/10 and commented, "If ''Fake Flowers'' featured Laus toeing the indie line, at times self-deprecatingly, ''Beatopia'' is her unapologetic leap into mega viability."

Track listing

Notes
* Song names styling:
** "The Perfect Pair", "Broken CD", "Fairy Song", and "Tinkerbell Is Overrated" are stylised in all lowercase.
** "Sunny Day", "Don't Get the Deal", and "You're Here That's the Thing" are stylized in sentence case.
** "See You Soon" is stylised as "See you Soon"

Personnel

Musicians

* Beabadoobee – vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, percussion
* Jacob Bugden – guitar, programming, synthesizers, keyboards, bass, backing vocals, percussion, flute, drums, organ, mandolin, piano, string arrangements
* Eliana Sewell – bass, percussion, backing vocals
* Luca Caruso – drums, percussion
* Jim Reed – drums, percussion
* Iain Berryman – programming, synthesizers, percussion, Wurlitzer, guitar, bass, piano, gomet, organ, glockenspiel
* Matty Healy – vocals, guitar
* Jack Steadman – guitar, bass, programming
* Finlay Dow-Smith – drum programming, bass synthesizer
* PinkPantheress – vocals
* Robin Skinner – backing vocals
* George Daniel – synthesizers, programming
* Georgia Ellery – strings, string arrangements
* Gareth Lockrane – flute
* Drew Dungrate-Smith – claps
* Andrea Cozzaglio – metal shutter
* Ben Baptie – programming
* Molly Hayward – percussion, backing vocals
* Soren Harrison – percussion, backing vocals, claps
* Amir Hossain – claps
* Calum Harrison – percussion, backing vocals

Technical

* Ben Baptie – mixing
* Joe LaPorta – mastering
* Jacob Bugden – engineering
* Iain Berryman – engineering
* Drew Dungrate-Smith – engineering
* Sophie Ellis – mixing assistance
* Claude Vause – additional engineering
* Andrea Cozzaglio – additional engineering
* Jonathan Gilmore – additional engineering (tracks 4, 9, 14)
* Joseph Bodgers – additional engineering (track 12)

Charts

References

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2022 albums
Beabadoobee albums
Dirty Hit albums