Part queer joy, part therapy: Girl Of My Dreams is certainly a rollercoaster
BY KATIE MCKENZIE
Girl Of My Dreams debuted at number two in the UK top 10 album releases in its first week, narrowly missing out on the top spot to Blackpink’s Born Pink. But if it’s pure drama you’re talking about, Girl Of My Dreams wins by miles.
How could you expect anything else from someone who released an EP, The Sex Tapes, confirming a relationship and a break-up in one drop? Then there’s the fact that the EP’s accompanying steamy visualisers were directed by her ex, Shannon Beveridge, while they quarantined together during lockdown.
FLETCHER’s latest project reflects her break-up and subsequent self-love journey. Through the 13 tracks and their accompanying melodrama, you learn a lot about what it means to break up with a celesbian.
Sting, the album’s first track, welcomes the confessional themes that are characteristic of FLETCHER’s work to date. With lyrics referencing a previous single, All Love, another song about her ex, you know things are about to get real. Sting’s fluttering baseline and poppy production make the pain of missing someone totally visceral.
Birthday Girl is another stand-out track, which talks about the fact that FLETCHER and Shannon share a birthday and what that means now they’re exes. Dreamy, angelic vocals make way for a stripped-back sound and a song that’s so oddly specific yet so relatable.
The tempo is upped once the pop rock breakdown of Becky’s So Hot kicks in, with a chorus so mammoth it demands to be screamed. Although it’s not the title track, this song has defined the drama of FLETCHER’s latest era.
FLETCHER teased the song on social media line by line before eventually revealing the song’s true meaning in the chorus. Spoiler alert, it’s about someone called Becky – her ex’s new girlfriend.
This song was written after she accidentally liked a post of her ex’s new girlfriend on Instagram wearing a T-shirt she once shared with her ex. Most people would swiftly unlike the pic and maybe be a bit annoyed about the T-shirt situation. But FLETCHER decided to write a song about it instead.
Then came the back-and-forth cryptic tweets between the two influencers, which started to get fans convinced that all this controversy was intended as PR for the album. However, FLETCHER’s ex Shannon soon dispelled those rumours with a candid TikTok.
While “Becky” might be a popular songwriting device and trope, think “Becky with the good hair” by Beyoncé, there is zero anonymity here. Anyone who’s ever fallen down the lesbian YouTube rabbit hole knows precisely who and what this song is about.
To make the best of a stalemate, Shannon and Becky decided to sell vintage T-shirts, donating the profits to LGBTQIA causes – but just when things were starting to blow over, Shannon dueted this TikTok, showing that she had refunded FLETCHER’s purchase. Said T-Shirts have since been thrown onstage during FLETCHER shows while fans scream along to the song.
Where lesbians dwell, lesbian drama is never far, and other influencers were chiming in on the situation before long. The result? A phenomenon named “The Becky Effect” by a TikTok user who has installed an L-Word-Esque chart to keep track of all this WLW community drama.
Amid the Becky’s So Hot situation, various other famous lesbian couples broke up, which created a day-by-day frenzy of break-up revelations, shady posts and what followers of the drama are calling a “curse” started by FLETCHER.
Group chats were firing on all cylinders with every new discovery, admission or detail that came to light. The atmosphere was chaotic; frankly, anyone who survived those few weeks deserves a prize.
The second half of the album transcends the bitter vibes of FLETCHER’s back catalogue and feels elevated, both sonically and lyrically. In I Think I’m Growing, and Girl Of My Dreams, you can relax into the buttery synths and bold choruses that feel like a big hug that drenches you in self-love.
FLETCHER fans who feel bereft of drama needn’t worry, as the singer has since confirmed she’ll be appearing on season three of The L Word: Generation Q.
“It’s official,” wrote the 28-year-old. “#TheLWord needed more drama for Season 3… so they invited me to be on it. we did it fam.” FLETCHER joins a cast of LGBTQIA guest stars, including Kehlani and Margaret Cho. Season three of The L Word: Generation Q will kick off in November, and after all of this, we can’t wait to see how things unfold.
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