Beabadoobee, a Filipino-British singer known for hit songs “the way things go,” “Real Man,” and “Beaches,” among others, released her fourth album, Pylon, on September 18, 2026.
For most of her audience, this album marks a clear shift from her previous soft, bedroom-rock style. “[The album] might be going along with the trends in pop music now that the main parts of songs have to be more upbeat or energetic,” Hannah McComb ’29 reflected on her experience with Pylon. Indeed, this album uses electric guitar in an alternative rock-grunge genre. However, as McComb argues, the music is still the same at its core. Through heavy guitar and drum beats, Beabadoobee’s voice serves as a soft landing for listeners; nonetheless, she keeps a bedroom-rock, indie-pop style in the bridges and main parts of the song to maintain a calm feel. With a nostalgic, dreamy vibe, this album shines with a distinct individual style, making it stand out in 2026.
The album displayed a special facet of Beabadoobee to her audiences. It unveils the anxiety and homesickness she faced while touring around cities and continents. On Instagram, Beabadoobee admits the album is a “painful journey.” As the album’s title suggests, Pylon inspires the entire record. The first song accentuated the theme, conveying the desperation of homecoming and seeing loved ones. Throughout the album, the theme shifts from a long, anxious journey back to her loved ones to an aggressive heavy-metal expression of anger at betrayal, then to a slower, softer tone about drifting apart in the third song, “Estranged.” Beabadoobee concludes the album with “Satellite,” softly conveying nostalgia and complex feelings toward someone she grew apart with.
“Estranged,” in particular, speaks to me as it does to many others. “Beabadoobee’s new album really captures moments where I want to go up to someone I knew to ask how things are lately, but it feels too awkward to do so,” as Jinghan Su ’29 reflects. The song, with a distinct feel from the album’s essence, is powerful in ways that directly and accurately describe the realization of distancing a friend who used to be close to you. Through this album, Beabadoobee alluded to fleeting friendships. Feeling estranged is an important part of tasting the bitterness of growing up. It is not something you can choose, but something you must go through.
We are all, in a way, pylons rising lonely beside roads, on hills, or in fields. We are all individuals with our own thoughts and feelings, like the electricity running through the pylons. Powerlines are emotions and memories built upon experiences. Sometimes the power lines are shorter, sometimes they entangle, and sometimes they break. As Pylon implies, Beabadoobee visualizes growth in a peculiar yet straightforward way. Even though the songs spiral around classic teenage experiences, the lyrics, combined with the music, become so much more than the everyday story of teenagers.
Growth is constant. Sometimes you suddenly realize how far you’ve come by looking at what you lost, while other times you consciously see yourself becoming more handy in itchy situations. Memories are alive as we live and engrave them every second. We might mess things up, and that memory comes up at night, keeping us "embarrassingly" awake. We might be on a long-distance flight, looking down at the sparkles in the darkness while counting days until the next time we go back home. We might look lost while hearing others talk about what they want to major in at university. All of these moments are growth.