Review | \u2018Whatever\u2019s Clever!\u2019 is a complex, vibrant new Charlie Puth album<\/a><\/p>\nHowever, right behind the tail end of her success with \u201cPORTALS\u201d came a rediscovery of a heinous sexual assault accusation with one of her two public apologies being posted to the social platform X stating \u201cshe never said no to what we chose to do together.\u201d With that and several other smaller controversies never addressed, the whole situation left a bad taste in my mouth as I noticed that lyrics I used to love now seemed like a call to victimize herself.<\/p>\n
That is to say then, \u201cHADES,\u201d at least to me, is complicated. I can definitively say I don\u2019t like it as much as the other albums she has released. But I contemplate then, is it that this album is just very different from what she has released, or is my apprehensiveness to her keeping me from seeing this album divorced from who she is?<\/p>\n
Just from the sheer length of the album, it was inevitable some songs would not stand. Every artist has their stinkers, just unfortunate that I had to listen to them. It was honestly a disappointment to me. The worst contender of all has to be \u201cGRUDGES.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not quite sure how Martinez went from last album\u2019s \u201cMILK OF THE SIREN\u201d in the deluxe version \u2014 a song relating the restricting and silencing of women that imminently builds up pain and anger, to the kind of watery death a siren can only give you \u2014 to \u201cGRUDGES\u201d. Which, literally, has the lyrics, \u201cHa, turn me into a I don\u2019t give a single flying f\u2014 f\u2014ity, f\u2014\/f\u2014 f\u2014 machine.\u201d<\/p>\n
I just\u2026I don\u2019t know. Are we serious right now? I suppose if Martinez was still young, I would have more grace for the kind of writing you could only find in a Hazbin Hotel song. But even Martinez\u2019s album \u201cCryBaby\u201d that was released when she was 21 had much more clever writing and wordplay even in the weakest songs.<\/p>\n
The track \u201cPOSSESSION,\u201d which first came out as a single to tease the album, has such a whimsical charm that yes, kind of reheats Ashniko\u2019s nachos without the sexual absurdity. However, I think the softness Martinez carries in her voice along with the new directions she took the instrumentals was done very well. I didn\u2019t particularly find any lyrics as powerful or clever, but it certainly had a fun sound. I can get behind that.<\/p>\n
A few other songs as well also had a lovely sound, with Martinez in the first track \u201cGARBAGE\u201d having a beautiful soft spoken weight onto the lyrics. This is something I wish I heard more often in the album. I believe this is something especially needed when establishing a brand new world to the consumer. Many songs do not get the pleasure of having this padding, and instead just sound bare.<\/p>\n
Back to \u201cThe Principal,\u201d a song about how Martinez found President Donald Trump, then in his first term, as controlling and cruel as a corrupt principal, which worked with the album being about going through a K-12 school. \u201cSPIDER WEB,\u201d a skillfully crafted song about how Martinez views phones as a sticky trap ready to suck you in.<\/p>\n
Instead of this lyrical writing, if a song does not have a light air to it, I simply find that it only sounds like Martinez either rushing to deliver exposition, or addressing an issue in her career post-COVID-19 pandemic. But these issues are not ones that made life long fans like me make the decision to no longer support her, they are simply things an artist has to put up with.<\/p>\n
With that, not only am I disappointed by the downgrade in artistry, but lack of accountability as well. This is not the work that my younger self connected with, and it\u2019s sad to say that I don\u2019t think it will ever come back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHADES,\u201d Melanie Martinez\u2019s fourth studio album, is about Circle, a young woman who has turned from flesh to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-367265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}