Halsey - Manic (Review)
Halsey's best and least consistent album...
17th January 2020
Capitol Records
My Rating:
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4.5
/10
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REVIEW
Funny how for as insistent Halsey is that she makes alternative music that over the last year both Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey have released albums not only far more accomplished than this, but also far more alternative. Halsey has always relied far too heavily on this self ascribed descriptor rather than actually attempting to make her music at all alternative, much less interesting, and this is where her greatest flaws have all stemmed from in my opinion.
Here on Manic though, I was preparing myself for a different kind of record. Each single released leading up to this record had distinctly different sounds from each other, something that seemed to offer a more expansive sonic differentiation rife with the kind of creative freedom she's always had but never explored. Intriguingly, not all the singles made it onto the final album, and despite the different directions of each single there was also a significant gap in quality between them. Where "You Should Be Sad" was a clever and defeated country rock song, "Without Me" was an irritating pop trap affair released well over a year before the album.
The build up courtesy of opening track "Ashley" was an intriguing and successfully experimental one, although it doesn't function well in the context of the album due to how poorly structured and mismatched the tracklist is, and on its own the song just isn't interesting enough to hold up. Essentially, it's an intro track placed on the wrong album.
Whilst my problems with this album's instrumentals are numerous, the largest criticism I have is just how unengaging Halsey's writing is; constantly striving to be tragic and clever but ending up melodramatic and pitiful. Of course, liking the narrator is only ever optional and always subjective, but for me the problem is not the stories she's telling but the way in which they're told, her lyrics coming across as a whole lot less deep than she intended.
This album is crippled by its foundations: it's extremely poorly structured, most of the experiments into different avenues of sound do not pay off and feel like weak imitations rather than committed explorations, and yet despite this being her least cohesive album to date it may well be her best. Take it or leave it, I know which I'm choosing.
TRACK RATINGS (/10)
1. Ashley - 6
2. clementine - 3
3. Graveyard - 6
4. You Should Be Sad - 7
5. Forever ... (is a long time) - 5
6. Dominic's Interlude - 3
7. I HATE EVERYBODY - 2
8. 3am - 5
9. Without Me - 2
10. Finally // beautiful stranger - 3
11. Alanis' Interlude - 7
12. killing boys - 4
13. SUGA's Interlude - 3
14. More - 3
15. Still Learning - 3
16. 929 - 1
BREAKDOWN
Ambition: 5
Atmosphere: 4
Catchiness/Enjoyability: 4
Content/Ideas: 6
Emotion/Engaging: 5
Execution: 3
Production: 4
Structure: 2
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Lyrics: 6
Vocals/Flow: 6
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Total: 45
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Check out the video for "You Should Be Sad"
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