\u201c
\n \u201c[Making this album] was the closest I\u2019ve come to finding some sort of faith in myself.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Leaning on her own instincts wasn\u2019t just an aesthetic shift, but a way of entirely reimagining what a Baby Queen record could be. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel as artistically free and as trusting of myself,\u201d Bella explains of her experience creating \u2018Quarter Life Crisis\u2019. \u201cI really wanted to return to something that I\u2019d had when I made my first EP, which was a total trust in my own instinct without the input of anyone else, and just being alone with my taste. That was something that I was able to recreate on [\u2018IHYDRM\u2019]. I did feel super alone, and I did feel like it was me against the world, which was actually very conducive to leaning into my instincts. It was pretty magical, and I felt like it was the closest I\u2019ve come to finding some sort of faith in myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea that self-belief could be a relatively newfangled discovery for Baby Queen may come as a surprise; while her online presence is determinedly self-deprecating, her persona, paired with heart-on-sleeve lyrics that pull few punches, does a solid job of hiding it. This relatable honesty plays a large part in the strong connection she has with her Kingdom-ers, and made her a fitting choice for the soundtrack for Heartstopper, Netflix\u2019s rosy teen romcom focused on celebrating queer identities. She penned her 2022 single \u2018Colours Of You\u2019 especially for the show\u2019s second series, while elsewhere, her music has mediated on body image, Gen-Z nihilism, and her own sexuality with seeming ease.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though I write these open songs, I can\u2019t move through the world as that person; I can\u2019t introduce myself to the world in my actual, everyday life as I truly am,\u201d she admits, reflecting on the stubbornly lingering internalised shame that she\u2019s recently uncovered in therapy. \u201cHow the fuck am I ever gonna be able to connect if I\u2019m ashamed, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her path to the therapist\u2019s chair actually began with writing \u2018IHYDRM\u2019, when putting her life down on paper made it easier to spot the patterns cropping up. \u201cThere was this clear turmoil within the person writing it – who happens to be me, unfortunately,\u201d she says. \u201cI definitely realised that what was rising to the top in this music were my issues – my hatred of myself, my shame, my desire to please, my desire to be loved, my fear of rejection, my pride. All these things were coming through, and I realised that these relationships were taking the same route and following the same arc because of [these things] lying underneath, and that [this arc] was never going to change because the common denominator was me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I Hope You Don\u2019t Remember Me\u2019 covers the full breadth of the emotional spectrum as it responds to a string of Bella\u2019s romantic dalliances, coming up bereft in some places and furious in others. Opening track \u2018Abigail\u2019, a fit of longing that eventually collapses into a storm of squealing guitars, was never intended to see the light of day – hence, perhaps, its use of real names. It was an exercise in catharsis but, according to the ideas still in Bella\u2019s head, it simply wasn\u2019t what a Baby Queen song sounded like. \u201cArt can\u2019t get any purer than that; it can\u2019t get any purer than thinking: \u2018I\u2019ve just got this out my system, but it\u2019s not for anyone else\u2019,\u201d she muses. \u201cNow I think it\u2019s one of the best things that I made during that time. I always think that when you get that feeling that \u2018this is touching too close\u2019, that\u2019s probably one of the best feelings you can get when you\u2019re making music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later on in the record, things do get closer to the tried and tested BQ formula, such as on the insistently positive \u2018That\u2019s Fine\u2019 (spoiler alert: it absolutely isn\u2019t) and the deceptively airy ode to attachment, \u2018Permanently Obsessed\u2019. \u2018Word Vomit\u2019 does what it says on the tin, ruminating on an embarrassing night out and exemplifying Bella\u2019s habit for saying exactly what\u2019s in her head, while \u2018Spite\u2019 navigates the post-break-up grey area between love and hate. Released the morning of our chat as the album\u2019s fifth single, lilting piano ballad \u2018The Protagonist\u2019 stands out for its slower pace and narrative turn, coming to reflect on Bella\u2019s own behaviour. The throughline, then, is a startling sense of self-awareness – one that, she explains, has been hard won.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201c \u201c[Making this album] was the closest I\u2019ve come to finding some sort of faith in myself.\u201d Leaning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-310435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}