beabadoobee Previews New, The 1975-Produced EP with “Last Day on Earth”

Philippines-born, London-bred pop singer/songwriter Bea Kristi, aka beabadoobee, has released her first new music of 2021, sharing “Last Day on Earth” Wednesday afternoon alongside the news of her forthcoming EP, Our Extended Play, out this summer on Dirty Hit.

Both the single and EP were co-written with and produced by Matty Healy and George Daniel of The 1975, which is plenty obvious once you push play: “Last Day on Earth” is a big, bright pop track that takes impending doom as a given, pushing right past it with beabadoobee’s breathy vocals and buoyant instrumentation straight out of “Steal My Sunshine.” Healy sings back-up as the song “shoop-doobie-doobie-doo”s its way into the end of days, co-signing the suggestion that, if we’re almost out of time, we might as well spend what little we have left immersed in unapologetic melody.

“‘Last Day On Earth’ is about all the things I would have done had I known we were going into a lockdown and the world was going to change the way it has,” beabadoobee explains in a statement. “It was written shortly after the first main lockdown and lyrically it’s me reflecting on how it would feel if we all knew ahead of time what was going to happen. All the things I would have done if I knew it was the last day of our old normality.”

“I wrote and recorded the EP on a farm with Matty and George from The 1975 in the countryside,” she recalls. “It was really nice being able to create together, my first time writing and recording in that kind of setting. I wanted to experiment on the sounds and sonics even more and the EP to me has a feeling of togetherness to it … how we’re all in this joined as one.”