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Pop music can take many forms and there’s merit to each one of them. Honesty, at least in pop, is a complex concept. In a genre where melody and spectacle can take precedence over overexposing lyricism, it’s a magical thing to find an artist who’s mastered all of the above – and delivers earworms so brutally real that they feel almost too intimate to have access to. When I first discovered Baby Queen over six years ago, I was struck by that immediate force of knowing an artist’s heart. Today, with the release of her sophomore record, I’m transported right back to that experience: being blown away by music that mirrors my own insecurities and deepest truths.

I Hope You Don’t Remember Me is born from a brand new Baby Queen, which was ironically the only path she could take back to herself. After parting ways with her first label, an all-encompassing heartbreak, and seeking guidance in classic records on how to make music devoid of expectation – all became clear. By leaving it all out on the table, this sophomore album cements Baby Queen as a force to be reckoned with and will enrich the lives of long-term listeners and new fans alike.

In conversation with Bella, we dissected the strange journey of no longer fitting your own brief, the necessity of change, and purposefully leaving the listener devoid of resolution:  

OnesToWatch: It’s crazy that it's been 3 years since your debut album came out. That’s a long time. 

Baby Queen: It is kind of crazy, isn't it? I wanted this to be out a year ago, so I'm really excited to have it out and then do something else. [Laughs]

So many artists I talk to are like, “I'm putting this out, but I'm already in a different headspace.” 

I was doing an interview yesterday and I was like, “Oh. I have to go back and listen to the songs again.” I was scared I wouldn't be able to speak about it, but it was actually fine.

Does it feel like it’s been a long time since the last record [Quarter Life Crisis]?

Everything that I've done before feels like a lifetime ago. It’s strange, but it's good. At the same time, it feels like there's not enough time. I could’ve taken 6 years to make this one. 

Did you know you would take your time with the next one or did life just happen?

It was a conglomerate of so many things that happened to me. I worked with one record label for the first 4 years of my career and stopped working with them, so it was a point in my career where I wanted to return to myself. There'd been a lot of voices around me for a long time and I felt I'd maybe lost myself, the essence of me. Maybe I'd stopped trusting myself and my instincts.

When you started making this record, you said it “didn’t really feel like Baby Queen music.” Did that scare you or excite you? 

It was a point where there was no other option for me other than to follow what was true. Without the absolute obsession with what you're making, it's impossible to make something great. So, both.

When did the music start clicking for you? 

When I made a promise to myself to not question my instincts, to completely trust my ear and what it wanted to hear. By that time, I had some preconceived notions of what I felt “Baby Queen” was and how she communicated. As a person, you grow and change so fucking much, so to keep doing the same thing is certainly not at all truthful. There was a period of time in which I was trying to fit my own brief without realizing. But ultimately, the brief is me.

Did you ever contemplate a name change? 

For sure. The person I was dating at the time, who a lot of this music ended up being about, asked “Would you release this under ‘Bella’?”, which was an interesting thought. I want to believe that something has the ability to change. The easiest route is to make the same album, what you know people want, but I couldn't. This [record] is definitely me pushing against the sense of what anyone else would want me to do. I didn't have a choice. Otherwise, I couldn't keep doing this. It sounds really intense…and I guess it is. Why are you doing this thing? For me, it became about the art and the creation of something that I thought was fucking brilliant. 

Were there any artists or albums that inspired you to take that path? 

Before making this album, I went on a journey through the greatest albums of all time. I really wanted to understand what made them so great. After going through all of those classics, the common thread was the experience of going away and creating something so distinctly unique, something not trying to be anything else. It's almost inexplicable, what makes these records so good, but what I took away from that is what makes something so great is that it is distinctly what it is. Sometimes there's an inciting incident too, like closing out with your label and feeling like it's a new chapter. 

Sometimes that’s what it takes. Slayyyter comes to mind for me, her new album is a result of not caring and just putting out something she loves despite what people think about it. 

Yeah! It's interesting that these very real creations are rising through. When you can put fear aside, there's nothing to lose.

On a lighter note…when did the pink hair go away? Do you think hair color directly impacts the music you’re making?

The pink hair went away not too long after the first album cycle! I went darker and decided that I felt a bit boring. [Laughs] Then I got a wolf cut and now we're here. It really does change your delivery, your energy. 

I Hope You Don't Remember Me is both the album title and the closing track title, which is interesting. It's also in a lyric in “Word Vomit.” When did this phrase become a guiding light?

It was towards the end of the process when I was starting to really understand what I'd been writing about. I was just writing what I felt compelled to and naturally, because of what I was going through, it all ended up being quite topically linked. I realized that I was writing about a particular pattern of behavior in romantic relationships and how I choose what will affirm. It was a place of shame and fear of rejection, the desire to hold on very tightly to something.

It does link back to the feelings of being an artist. 

Totally. I felt fundamentally rejected by the entire world. [Laughs] And I rejected the entire world in response. There's a toxic, obviously unhealed person that comes through in these songs. There’s the childlike undertone, which has been a theme of mine for a long time. I was reading through all the lyrics and I really liked that it made me laugh. “I hope you don't remember me now” is the opposite of what you'd expect someone to say. It holds a sense of shame. It’s me saying, “I hope that you can erase me from your mind.” It's got defiance in it as well. I kept on coming back to it [as a title] because everything else felt too understandable and an important thing about this album is that there’s no resolution. Is the cycle going to repeat itself? Is it not? Are we going back to the beginning? I don't know what's gonna happen either, so I guess we'll figure it out together. 

You keep saying there's no resolution on this album, which I love. Some artists may be scared to say that because people look for that in art. 

There’s a song, a really good song…one of the best songs that we've ever made, that I left off the record because it resolved the story too much.

“Abigail” at the beginning is such an interesting choice. When did you know that it would be the opening track?

When I wrote that song, I didn't think that I was gonna release it at all. This was a classic example of when I was like, “This is not a Baby Queen song.” It really exposed me, but I got so excited by it. I was so reluctant to do anything with, so of course everyone I showed it to responded very passionately. Which is just classic [Laughs]. Sometimes the things you want to keep to yourself are the most important to give away. It’s your purest output. When you're not thinking about releasing it at all, it's just made. And I think that that's really powerful. I guess that's why we started [the album] with this song. 

“Permanently Obsessed” is obviously a hit. This one feels so essential Baby Queen to me. 

I was in an identity crisis for ages, but I’m actually not anymore. This is quintessentially Baby Queen because it's quintessentially me. That song was fucking hell to make. I think we had three different bass players, we ended up going back to the logic-based sound after hundreds of passes. But, it's really fun.

It's going to be so fun to hear live.

Yeah, fun for the old vocal chords. [Laughs]

How much do you think about live performances when writing? Some of your lyrics are straight up tongue twisters. 

You know, I'm kind of good at the tongue twisters! But, no I don't think about it enough. The songs that you write on live instruments end up being the most conducive to actually playing live and I want to do more of that. 

“That’s Fine” really showcases your humor. Do you feel catharsis from this one? 

That was such a horrible time of my life. I was in so much agony. But, when I hear the demo version of that song, that I made on my laptop on the Eurostar and on a tour bus in the US, it takes me back in a very fond way. There was magic happening in a horrible place. I love that it's like a wide smile with tears streaming down your face, because obviously it's not one bit fine. 

It pairs with “Spite” in my mind. Both have anger at the forefront, but it’s more complex underneath. 

Those are the different reactions that we have, because ultimately it’s the same story. It’s just these different mindsets that you vacillate between; anger and feigned happiness. 

I love the section where you sing, “I never grow / I just regress / I never change / I just forget.” It begs the question of the album. Was there freedom in writing that?

It's classic behavior from me, not being able to vocalize my feelings out of fear of being rejected. I really do love this song and I love the production on it. Writing this song was not cathartic, because I went to stay at my manager’s farmhouse in Kent and the night I got there, the telephone pole fell over and the internet went down. I was stuck there by myself, completely isolated. There was no connection to the outside world and I was going through this whole situation. I remember thinking, “If the internet comes back on, I'm calling this person to tell them exactly how I feel.” I was sitting there writing this song, vibrating from frustration. It was actually very visceral for me. I was looking for an outside sign to tell me what to do as opposed to looking inward. 

I'm assuming the power did not come back? 

The power didn't come back and I left 2 days later because the isolation had become too much. 

I love how it goes into “Bored Out Of My Mind,” because it’s just so you to write a song about how boring it is to be healed. [Laughs] The urge to gravitate towards chaos is also reflected in the song’s production. 

It’s interesting because I came back from Kent, arrived at my flat, picked up the guitar, and wrote that song. I had become so fixated [on this relationship] that I was thinking, “What the fuck am I going to do with all my time? I'm gonna be bored.” Heartbreak is such a blessing for an artist, so it’s an artist thing to make sure you get everything that you can out of that experience. Those two first lines, “Now time has done what they said it would / And I feel so disappointed,” I really fucking love them. 

Who are your OnesToWatch? 

I love Nilüfer Yanya. She has this song called “Like I Say (I runaway)” and the production is absolutely phenomenal. I also really like Lola Blue, she just put out her first EP and it’s really good. 

Listen to I Hope You Don’t Remember Me below: