I imagine that going viral on TikTok does as much harm as it does good when you aren’t an A-lister that can just join in on the trend, do a little dance to show how ‘in touch’ you are with your audience, and then cash the extra royalty checks. For most others it’s likely a lot of added attention from people that don’t have a good understanding of you and your work, and you may lose your new mercurial audience the second they hear the next trend. Do you try to please the new fans, or do you bank on the support of those that put you in position to succeed in the first place? Trying to split the middle can lead to a miss that pleases no one and alienates both groups. Unfortunately, that type of miss is what I got from Beach Bunny‘s latest.
Beach Bunny has previously done a very good job with some of their commentary on things like gender roles on tracks like “Good Girls (Don’t Get Used)”, but Lili Trifilio’s efforts to expand that almost completely fails on Tunnel Vision. Just to be clear about something, I’m not the type of person that thinks every artist should make music that’s politically charged or spend a lot of time commenting on our numerous societal problems. It’s not everyone’s strength, and I have no problem with it if someone chooses not to do it. However, once you start doing so, it’s fair game to criticize your methods and topics, and boy do I have a lot of issues with how poorly done Tunnel Vision’s messaging is.
“Just Around The Corner” has the depth of a Green Day song and it’s just as childish. The hook drains me every time I listen to it. ‘Her brain is fried, the internet broke her mind’, ‘the government doesn’t care who dies.’ This is TikTok baby brain. And the second part isn’t even true. They care and are actively killing them. “Violence” is probably worse. It feels very heavily inspired by the Paramore song “The News” off their latest album, to the point of imitation. Both try to vent about the information overload that the internet brings but there’s a key element of knowledgeable compassion anchoring the Paramore track that the Beach Bunny track misses. Hayley’s able to close the track laying into the news system that often purposefully divides and distracts, and Lili just spends the whole song rambling about stuff she probably saw on TikTok and how hard it is to figure out the meaning of life and microplastics in your clothes. It’s not a political track, but “Mr. Predictable” is a very boring one I don’t think works nearly at all. Just has very little to say.
While there’s much of Tunnel Vision I’m really not a fan of, it’s not a complete disaster – I did get some songs that I enjoyed. I really loved “Big Pink Bubble”. It’s a short and sweet-sounding track about having an avoidant personality, and the sarcastic tone plays into Lili’s strengths as a writer much more than some of the other tracks. The title track also plays into strengths already established by the band in some of their earlier work. Being open and vulnerable works well for Lili, and it’s no different here.
The lyrical struggles that impacted much of Tunnel Vision didn’t impact the band’s quality instrumentals. They aren’t strong enough to elevate the album’s weaker moments, but it never falters, and I do appreciate the consistency, even if going into it I would have looked forward to Beach Bunny trying some new things. The “Clueless” instrumental is very early 2000s pop-rock, which is right in their wheelhouse, and although I don’t think the lyrics are incredibly original, it does sound good. “Vertigo”, which came out a year ago, has some great guitar playing and is a great lead single. Unfortunately, most of my favorite tracks off the album were the singles.
Having been a fan of the band for a while, it’s disappointing to come away from a new project this unenthused, but I also can’t lie to myself. It’s not bad enough for me to give up on them or ignore the older material I do like, but a lot of Tunnel Vision feels like it was made to be music used as TikTok fodder. Maybe it’ll grow on me. If not, I’ll still give the next Beach Bunny album a listen when it gets here.
