Manic - Halsey: Review
is a New Jersey born pop singer who blew up around five years ago on the back of her debut record Badlands and its smash single New Americana. Manis is her third record and it comes three years after her last project Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, but Halsey hasn't been quiet in those years with a consistent output of new music and singles as well as a consistently presence in pop music headlines for a number of reasons.
Review By Lavender:
There has never really been a time when I've considered myself a Halsey fan. For every genuinely good pop tune like Ghost or Strangers there are mountains of painful, generic and incredibly underwritten pop tunes under her belt. After hearing the long list of singles leading up to this record I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like Manic any more than her last two records, but the best way I can describe it is as one step forward and about five steps back.
The lead single for the record was the track Without Me a song so generic and painfully lacking in anything worthwhile that I think anyone who claims to genuinely like it shouldn't be trusted. It, like many other songs on the record sounds like an AI generated pop tune with some mild edgy lyrics slathered on to make 12 year old kids listening to the radio feel rebellious. The next single that actually landed on the record was Graveyard a song that could have been given to just about any pop singer and sounded almost exactly the same. clementine is a ballad type track with some really plunky keys and I quite like the supporting vocals. Unfortunately the songwriting is not there and some of the lyrics are an absolute mess that I can't believe made it onto a record this popular, plus the hook is totally flat.
The last pair of singles came out once the record was announced starting with Finally // Beautiful Stranger a track that feels like Halsey wanted to make a country song but couldn't fully commit. Why this was released as a single I'm not really sure and why it is split into two parts by its title I can't explain either since the song is really just one long boring passage. You Should Be Sad was probably the most tolerable single and it features an ever so slight folky twang to it. An acoustic guitar instrumental drives the song and Halsey's vocals are pretty commanding. I have absolutely no idea why parts of this track have huge walls of fuzzed out guitars because it sounds totally terrible and clashes with everything else in the song.
The only features the record has to break up the monotony come on interludes and all I can say is that I hope Dominic Fike and Suga of BTS were paid a lot of money for their contributions because the performances they give are pretty rough. On the other hand Alanis Morissette gives a fantastic performance on her interlude and its the longest and most full of the three. I wish Alanis had even more presence on the song since I think it may be one of the best tracks on the entire record.
While we're on the songs handful of moderate highlights we can get into the albums opening track Ashley a dreamy pop ballad that features some loud vocal samples as well as front and center vocals from Halsey. The song is edgy but not an overall bad tune. killing boys is another one of the more tolerable songs despite its generic features it is easy enough to vibe to. The record ends on a decent stretch with Still Learning a classic Halsey positivity ballad that actually has some life to it, and the closing song 929 which is the only track here that sounds like it was actually written by Halsey and not a focus group, but it also sounds like a solo from the edgiest off-broadway musical you've ever seen.
The rest of the tracks here range from songs that are doomed from the very start to tracks that may have a good idea somewhere but ruin it. Forever is a pretty compelling piano ballad but Halsey does that really cringey vocal thing on the song, I'm not sure how specifically to describe it but if you're familiar with her music you know exactly what I'm talking about. I HATE EVERYBODY is a shimmery forgettable pop ballad that sees Halsey more in her feelings than directing the anger at anyone or anything else like the title would imply. 3am starts off fine but then it gets into an absolutely awful chorus that sounds like a P!nk song from the 2000's and it is absolutely miserable. None of the extra rock instrumentation on this track was necessary. More is a kind of cute ballad but jesus it literally sounds like royalty free pop music you would hear in a cheap commercial and the appeal doesn't last nearly as long as the song does.
Manic may be Halsey's worst outing yet. More so than ever before she handicaps the few good ideas the record has with some terrible and completely unnecessary additions. And more tracks than ever before are completely lifeless. Despite the fact that Halsey dominates the cover of this record, it is her least personal sounding yet and can be an incredibly taxing 45 minute listen. 2.5/10
