{"id":368309,"date":"2026-03-27T16:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T16:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/368309\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T16:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T16:20:08","slug":"melanie-martinez-hades-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/368309\/","title":{"rendered":"Melanie Martinez’ ‘Hades’: Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMelanie Martinez<\/a> may be the most reluctant star ever to sell out two nights at Madison Square Garden. Even as she rose to stardom as a teenager on \u201cThe Voice\u201d a dozen-plus years ago and platinum status with her early albums, she never seemed comfortable with the trappings of fame, especially as a female artist, and became less so as the years went on. That situation that seemed to reach a conclusion with the imagery around her last album, 2023\u2019s \u201cPortals,\u201d<\/a> which found her wearing a bulbous, Bjork-esque mask (that she also wore onstage for the album\u2019s tour).<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, that mask is nothing compared with the songs and especially the lyrics on her sprawling and ambitious new album \u201cHades,\u201d nearly every one of which includes at least one \u201cDid she just say what I think she said?\u201d moment. With Hades signifying the evil in the world, each song on the album tackles a different horror: political and climate crises, toxic masculinity, relationship abuse, misogyny, body shaming, homelessness, hypocrisy in religion, the psychological abusiveness of the entertainment industry toward women, the greed of billionaires, toxicity in social media, revenge fantasies and finally, after all that, love. That she does so while singing those lyrics in her high, often-sweet voice \u2014 punctuated with the occasional murderous shriek or creepy sound effect mirroring the lyrics \u2014\u00a0only makes the contrasts even more jarring.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd what\u2019s in those lyrics? \u201cHis face made me wet when I pulled out a knife\/ His ignorance slipped and so did my fist\/ Punched him real hard, bet it felt like a kiss.\u201d \u201cTheir ignorant brains call genocide war\/ Protect white feelings while they swipe and ignore.\u201d \u201cMy face still has fat\/ Someone told me their doctor could get rid of that\/ But I\u2019ve already got a surgeon who knows me\/ Tonguing down anesthesia while he cut me\/ And implanted 500cc of sexy\/ I won\u2019t lie to you that man really blessed me.\u201d \u201cSpent so many years being cute on the TV\/ Before I could blink I became nearly 30\/ I got bigger boobs so I that could transcend it\/ Now all that I read is \u2018Hey I think she\u2019s pregnant.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGet the idea? With 18 songs spanning 70-some minutes, the album is a lot to take in \u2014\u00a0we had to stop in the middle on the first listen \u2014\u00a0but despite the sometimes shockingly intense lyrics, it\u2019s totally approachable musically; it\u2019s not like listening to a death metal album at all. The music, primarily in produced and co-written with her longtime collaborator CJ Baran (Marina, Carly Rae Jepsen, Panic! at the Disco), basically follows a melodic, electronic-alternative-pop framework that, like her vocals, occasionally veers into menace.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd those moments are where \u201cHades\u201d positively seethes: Her voice will start out sweet, but then gets more and more deranged \u2014\u00a0and then even more. It\u2019s exciting, terrifying and awesome all at the same time, as you wonder, \u201cOh shit, is she going to keep going?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSuffice it to say, she does. And also suffice it to say that \u201cHades\u201d is a stinging, powerful and important statement against the horrific state of much of the world, and a fiery musical commentary on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melanie Martinez may be the most reluctant star ever to sell out two nights at Madison Square Garden.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,165704,278],"class_list":["post-368309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-melanie-martinez","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}