Photo: Samira Kassem
Beach Bunny, the Chicago indie rock band, came out with their second studio album Blame Game on January 15th of 2021. Their first album Honeymoon made waves with accolades from Billboard, The New York Times and Rolling Stone (Best Album of 2020).
The tone for this album is perfectly captured by the album cover, art by Instagram user @stephaniepriscilla. Instead of a pretty pastel pink as they have used in the past, it is a hot, vibrant and electric pink. In previous albums the songs express heartbreak, loneliness and lots of yearning.
Lili Trifilio, songwriter, vocalist, guitarist and founder of Beach Bunny, has written songs of intense emotion, taking the listener through what she is feeling. Despite having possibly never experienced heartbreak, Trifilio manages to show the listener to experience how it feels to have a cracked heart.
While this music is still beautiful, it heavily relies on a male object for Trifilio to sing about, more so than even herself. This new EP shows the growth of Trifilio as a songwriter and a person, now she focuses more on herself in her music and situations rather than the emotions that came from them.
In the song ‘Good Girls (Don’t Get Used)’ Trifilio sings about being aware they are being used by a guy and knowing that they deserve better than this. In the chorus Trifilio sings, ‘I’m tired of dumb boy talk / Of getting close, you say you won’t, you do / Then act as though don’t / You’re not a ghost, I’m not afraid of you.”
Referring to the person Trifilio is singing to as a “ghost” could be referring to the term “ghosting”—when a person cuts off all communication with their friends or the person they’re dating, with zero warning or notice beforehand.
Throughout the song, Trifilio makes references to the boy getting close to her, but when things start to get serious he disappears—ghosting. Trifilio sings, “Hate it how you ignore me / Like for a weekend, but then pretend nothing happened, is that so? / ‘Cause I asked to come over / But supposedly a girl that’s just your friend was in your home.”
The next song to come up on the track, ‘Love Sick is one of the most beautiful songs lyrically on the album. It features great metaphors and lyrics that are highly poetic. Though I am not one for math, the lines, “Fed up with subtracting names / Need someone who isn’t an equation / Only adding up to pain,” feeds something so primal in me.
It’s not overly complex so I feel like I need to search for some hidden meaning, but adds enough substance to give it a little spice.
‘Love Sick’ comes in after the heartbreak of ‘Good Girls (Don’t Get Used)’.
After having to deal with the uncertainty and back-and-forth of the previous relationship, Trifilio isn’t sure if she’s ready for a new relationship. At the beginning she tries hard to convince herself and the other person that she is not yet ready for a relationship: “Terrified of letting someone in / Just because I’m over closure / Doesn’t mean I wanna start again / Trying to maintain composure / Let’s pretend you’re only just a friend.” But as Trifilio keeps singing, even she can’t deny she might be falling for this person, “But if you leaned a little closer / I think you could fall into my head.”
‘Nice Guys’ is my favorite song on this album. It speaks about pretentious guys who believe that them showing basic human decency should be rewarded with sex.
Trifilio sings, “I guess if you’re polite, it means I oughta stay the night / Right?” Trifilio spends the song critiquing these men’s attitude towards women and the feeling of being treated this way. Though this is the shortest song on the album it still packs just as big of a punch as the rest.
The final song on the album, and the namesake for it, ‘Blame Game’ speaks of the victim-blaming in society. There’s references to catcalling, how women are used in media, and more. The song is a somber ending to the album but it fits the new aesthetic Trifilio seems to be exploring.
An album of experiences new and old, new wounds and reopening old scars, I cannot wait to see what Trifilio and the rest of Beach Bunny do in the future. This is a new beginning to Beach Bunny, and with their recent uptick in listeners due to the social media platform TikTok, it will be incredible to witness Beach Bunny bask in their new fame.
5/5 Stars
