Baby Queen’s ‘Quarter Life Crisis’ is a raw look at life in your 20s
London’s favourite anti-pop musician, Baby Queen, has released her long-awaited debut album, Quarter Life Crisis. Rising to cult status after featuring in Netflix’s Heartstopper soundtrack (she even made a cameo in Season 2) Baby Queen has been shaking up the UK’s music scene with her unique brand of dreamy anti-pop.
After giving the die-hard fans an acoustic sneak peak at the album earlier this autumn, with a string of ‘bedroom session’ shows, the release of Baby Queen’s debut has brought existential crises to the forefront of our minds. Battling between celebrating the limitlessness of the aspirational twenty-something and the depths of the loneliness and confusion that come with such a tumultuous period of life, Baby Queen, the alias of 26-year-old Arabella Latham, examines her life from every existential angle on this record.
She starts strong with upbeat tracks ‘We Can Be Anything’ and ‘kid genius,’ which are reminiscent of her earlier work that featured on the Heartstopper soundtrack. The first song is a great opener, centring on the freedom of realising that nothing matters –in a positive way– with lyrics including “I said, if it’s inconsequential, then there’s infinite potential”. Tinged with Y2K nostalgia, she explores the common trope that youth is wasted on the young in these songs, showing the raw side of Baby Queen from the start. On ‘Love Killer’, she roasts herself, with lyrics like “Poisonous apple inside the garden of eden” and “The only man I find attractive is the Grim Reaper” contrasting with the daydreamy wishes in ‘Dream Girl’, where she crushes hard on a girl who already has a boyfriend.
Latham herself said of the album: “This album tells the story of my journey through my early 20s - leaving my childhood and my adolescence behind but never really losing my childlike wonder and never quite growing up. The songs are all facets of what early adulthood has been like for me while discovering new parts of myself, my sexuality, my past and my place in this world. It has been lonely, chaotic, beautiful, devastating and inspiring and I think these songs reflect that, creating a space in which innocence and experience can live side by side as two conflicting entities.”
The title track ‘Quarter Life Crisis’ is definitely a high point, and where Baby Queen is at her best. Questioning where the time goes, wondering “what if all my best years are behind me” and “How can I focus on the future, when I’m one foot in the past”, she sings about feelings that everyone in their mid to late-twenties can relate to by diving into the struggle between past, present and future, and the confusion surrounding the sudden pressure to pick your life path. The quality of the record’s production, thanks to collaborator King Ed, is prominent here; the rising and falling melody is reminiscent of the physical embodiment of the emotions she’s singing about.
Analyzing both her highs and lows, Latham puts her heart on a platter and lets us pick it apart. The tear-jerker piano-based ballad ‘Obvious’ may be where she is the most honest. Documenting the emotional pain of being so far away from your family for so long, with lyrics like ‘It would be four years until I saw my dad’ and ‘Time runs faster than you can, you’ll look back on what you had, I’m just trying not to feel stuck’, she tugs at your heartstrings and makes you want to run home and give your family a hug.
This record is for anyone in their twenties struggling with the uncertainty of the decade and the challenge of being a grown-up but feeling like you’re not quite there yet. The singer says, ‘Human beings are complex, and life and growth are complex and nuanced. I'm not sure anybody ever truly feels like they have it all figured out - I certainly don't, but it has been the greatest joy of my life to be able to share my experiences with those willing to listen to my stories. I really want this album to leave people feeling hopeful, because there is so much beauty to live through and look forward to and it truly is magical and extraordinary to be alive and to have the very short opportunity to experience every emotion imaginable.”
Quarter Life Crisis is out now and you can catch Baby Queen on tour.