Rapid Fire Reviews: What is A Pop Diva Now? with Melanie Martinez, Ellie Goulding, Kesha

PORTALS - Melanie Martinez

A few years ago when I reviewed Melanie's long-awaited sophomore album K-12 I called her a cult pop star because her dark and thematic songs attracted a cult following with the way they tackled adult subjects through childhood imagery, but they hadn't broken into the mainstream. In the years since however, Melanie's music has repeatedly gone viral and her fans have gotten a LOT louder. One thing that hasn't changed is my opinions on Melanie's first two albums. Crybaby still deserves its cult status and probably deserves a lot more recognition in retrospect for how many indie and underground pop artists of today were clearly influenced by it. While her sophomore record K-12 is more inconsistent it's also rewardingly conceptual and the plotless but heavily stylized movie it was attached to is equally fun. In combination with those two albums and the fact that I still enjoyed the lead single DEATH a good bit, I was fully anticipating I'd like PORTALS. While the album has been drastically over-hated online, it's easily Melanie's weakest collection of tracks yet which at one point in the second half falls off a cliff completely.

I'm going to tackle this record in two parts, starting with the first 8 songs. These are by most measures a pretty standard set of Melanie tracks though maybe without highlights as high as we've come to expect. On top of DEATH I've come to enjoy songs like the similarly catchy VOID, the great hook on BATTLE OF THE LARYNX, and the ballad LIGHT SHOWER. Even though the nursery rhyme songwriting can be a bit indulgent even for Melanie standards on songs like FAIRY SOIREE and especially on SPIDER WEB I think these 8 tracks are a decent collection that maybe floats around the 6/10 range as a whole. And then the record completely loses its mind. 

The last five songs on the album are all wild in their own unique ways, some far worse than others. THE CONTORTIONIST doubles down on a trope from my former least favorite Melanie song of all time Nurse's Office, that being gross-ass ASMR sound effects. This time it's awful bone cracking that went kind of viral for its intolerable presentation in the wake of the record's release. MOON CYCLE is all about the perception we have of how cis women act when on their period and its the kind of song I think a better song writer could pull off well. Unfortunately, whether through throw-away lyrics, excessively silly dialogue, or just straight-up gross metaphors Melanie makes this song pretty much impossible to praise in any way. I called Nurse's Office my "former" least favorite Melanie song of all time because NYMPHOLOGY is really a mess I'm barely capable of even comprehending. Not only does it have some of the worst lyrics and refrains I've heard all year but the spelling on the chorus is just embarrassing. EVIL and WOMB aren't quite as bad though hearing Melanie's attempt at disses on the former makes me wonder how much of the lyrics on Cry Baby were actually in character after all. 

Calling this record inconsistent is a DRASTIC understatement and why all of its weakest moments are packed into the final run is completely beyond me. Taken into consideration in its entirety it's really just another Melanie outing that shoots for something deeper than your average pop outing, though for the first time I think she falls well short of the mark. 5/10

Higher Than Heaven - Ellie Goulding

Ellie Goulding's 5th studio album isn't something I was really all that excited for in concept, but hearing one single after another take a pretty sticky dance-pop approach while also coming off as pretty catchy and vibrant made me feel like a tween again waiting to see what Ellie had cooked up for us next. The album leads off with two unstoppably dancy summer jams first the solid Midnight Dreams followed by the even better Cure For Love. Even though those are some of the record's biggest highlights right out of the gate the record really just carries on from there with very few big dips in quality. Like A Saviour is a soaring dance-pop anthem that I didn't fully appreciate until I heard it in the context of the album. Even the verses aren't the most interesting in the world I also enjoy the title track a good bit. I'm also a fan of some of the more nocturnal songs on the record like the absolute banger Let It Die or the slicker Just For You whose punchy synth lines are some of my favorite instrumentation on the entire record.

While this record may not have some of the conceptual ties of something by Carly Rae Jepsen or the veteran poise of an album like Jessie Ware's recent outing, it does present a pretty solid 35-minute run of fun, dancy electro-pop. By finding a lane that works and sticking pretty closely to it I think Ellie really managed to surprise me with one of her best records in years. Even with the lack of ambition or experimentation, I think this could be among the better half of mainstream pop records this year. 6.5/10

Gag Order - Kesha

I wanna start this off by saying I like Kesha as a person and I respect her a lot. Like most people I enjoyed her 2017 artistic reimagining on Rainbow and I think there was more merit to some of her earlier hits than they were given at the time. All of this is to say that I came into this record not only expecting to like it but expecting that if I didn't like it, the problem would be more songwriting, production, or style than themes or attitude. Unfortunately. there's really only one thing turns me off of music faster than anything else, cringe. And cringe is the defining motif of Gag Order.

I was excited to hear in the pre-release buzz surrounding the record that this record would see Kesha following some of her least commercial ambitions to date and on the record's few highlights she really does that well. One of the singles Eat The Acid is a dark and spacious cut with methodical chanting that builds like rolling thunderclouds into a surprisingly epic electronic finale. The Drama is a weirder cut than I was ever anticipating with a Ramones interpolation on the back end of all things. Unfortunately, not all of those swings pay off, and some of the worst songs on the record like Peace & Quiet and Only Love Can Save Us Now are moves that badly miss the mark. But honestly, it isn't even those tracks that drag the record down. What really kills it is the combination of Kesha's "me against the world mentality" with songwriting that feels like it came from the journal of a 14-year-old atheist. Now let me make it clear, I think Kesha has VERY good reasons to be angry with the way she was treated in the music industry but the way she tries to express it on this album has made me cringe my bones into dust across four or five listens. Nowhere is this more obvious than on Fine Line which has a legitimate gripe at those who exploited Kesha for profit but god does it express it in a way that's just unbearable. Even on the songs I like here the immaturity of the lyrics is just a big problem for me. Neither of her last two albums were like that and I'm just left kind of confused at how we ended up with content more childish than anything Melanie Martinez has ever done with lyrics like "yeah shut up, eat your breakfast." 

Clearly, some people are relating to Kesha's sentiment on this album as I've seen some warm reception from both fans and critics. But for me, while this isn't the worst record I've heard in 2023 it's easily been the most difficult one to get through. If you're MUCH more tolerant of cringe than I am and wanna hear a record that isn't afraid to bounce between acoustic ballads and slightly experimental electronica-influenced pop with a vindictive attitude running throughout, then maybe do give this record a shot. It isn't for me though. 2.5/10