Album Review: Bebe Rexha – Dirty Blonde
3 min read
Bebe Rexha occupies an interesting space in pop. Despite writing hits for others, landing major collaborations, and racking up billions of streams, she’s feels like an artist who’s yet to receive the recognition her talent deserved. After years navigating major-labels, Dirty Blonde marks a significant turning point — her first album as an independent artist following her departure from Warner Records and a move to Empire Distribution. Rexha has described the project as reclaiming her voice and creative freedom, shedding the expectations of being a “perfect, clean-girl pop star” in favour of something more authentic and unapologetic. A visual album (each track’s accompanied by its own video), Dirty Blonde feels more like a statement of intent, than a mere album release. So… let’s find out if the move from major labels was a jump or a push…
Kicking off with a bang, Hysteria is full on turn of the century euro tech, a bit cheesy for my tastes, and, honestly, the music doesn’t fit the full verses that Bebe tries to cram in, I do like the break towards the end though, and the mismatch of vocals to beats continues to Tokyo, which is, trying to mesh DnB beats to her vocals, and that doesn’t really work for me, and then we get to New Religion is a straight up Faithless Insomnia track with Bebe’s own lyrics layered over the top… I don’t get the point of this, it’s not in the same solar system as the original – sorry Bebe!! S.H.I.T by name… I jest! Seriously though, the more contemporary semi-Arabic hip hop beat works much better with her vocals here, as can be said for the deep house beats of Çike Çike – and this is probably my favourite track on the album. I Like You Better Than Me begins strong, but from where the beat kicks in, it’s a mismatch on the beat and the lyrics/vocals… which are somewhat drowned out, and same motif of starting well then turning into a mismatch can be said for the country opening of Drink and a Little Love, which descends into tinny house which doesn’t suit the lyrics/vocals.
The galloping beat that is synonymous with Fleetwood Mac runs though One Day, which happily avoids a switch up to some horrific electro house mismatch, and as a result, is quite a palatable track, and the down tempo, sad track Time didn’t need the synth beat dropping about 2/3rds of the way through – it would have been much more powerful if it was an analogue minimalist track!! Sadly this comment is rinse and repeat for The Way I Want You, though the entirely unnecessary drop happens ¾ of the wat through the track. Nobody’s There next – where the beat matches the spirit of the track (I just don’t particularly like the track with its very American faux house beat), whereas penultimate track Night Falls doesn’t fall into the same trap as prior tracks, a low key ‘after the event’ track manages to create a sense of tension/atmosphere build throughout, leading us to Sad Girls which uses a David Guetta track, which works far better than the Faithless ‘collab’, partly because of the style of track, and partly because this Guetta track wasn’t as iconic (for me) – decent end to the album with the atmosphere build of the penultimate track.
Yeah, Dirty Blonde was a miss for me, I think often the tome of the music didn’t match the tone of the lyrics, or most of the time where it did there was an unneeded switch of music style which really turned me off. You can see that Bebe has song writing talent, but it just doesn’t work with the production/composition of the track on this album for me – sorry, Bebe.
