Melanie Martinez has said that the Nina Simone quote “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times” was the impetus for her fourth studio album, Hades. But the narratively byzantine, dark-pop concept album proves that there’s a difference between making art that confronts our sociopolitical hellscape and art that merely approximates the hellish experience of doomscrolling through infographics about it.
Which is a shame, since Martinez’s albums, often accompanied by feature-length films that suggest Quentin Tarantino adaptations of the Candy Land board game, contain mythological universes unto themselves. With her Cabbage Patch Kid-on-acid aesthetic and pliable vocal range, the Voice alum marries the lore-building of Ethel Cain with the brooding synth-pop of Billie Eilish, charting the journeys of oft-neglected young female characters who use their wits (and telekinetic abilities) to reclaim their autonomy.
Hades follows this formula, with Martinez embodying the perspective of Circle, a corporatized yet technologically naïve pop star who led a violent uprising to escape the secluded commune of her upbringing. Unlike the singer’s previous albums, which took place in everything from a tyrannical boarding school (2019’s K-12) to a purgatorial forest realm (2023’s Portals), Hades hammers home that this underworld is synonymous with the aboveground society of today: “Devices are filled with the blood of their addicted hands/No service is left but the service you give to your fellow American man,” Martinez sings on opener “Garbage.”
If that sounds a bit didactic (and clunky), it’s just the beginning of a punishingly long 18 tracks that are almost all uniformly about Very Important Things: climate change (“Hell’s Front Porch”), homelessness (“Gutter”), body-shaming (“Weight Watchers”), the patriarchy (“Possession”), capitalism (“Monopoly Man”), and just about every other -ism you can think of. Subtlety is of little concern here, and producer CJ Baran’s ominous pads, ultra-reverbed arpeggiated guitar melodies, and haunted piano—underscored by some Twenty-One Pilots-lite drum patterns—feel as obvious an evocation of the eponymous netherworld as one can imagine.
Deft metaphor and intricate world-building are key elements of quality fantasy, but Martinez appears content with letting buzzwords and archetypes do the work for her. “You’re racist, not nuanced/Might as well just wear white cloth,” she sings on “White Boy with a Gun,” despite never characterizing the loser as anything more than “cute” and “typical” and never relaying what he said during their pillow talk to prompt such a reaction.
This contextual void, as well as her propensity to lean on her vulgarity-spewing babydoll voice (you can “go get fucked” and she “don’t give a single flying fuckety fuck fuck fuck”) as shorthand for tone-setting, makes Martinez’s invocations of formidable political realities feel juvenile and toothless. On “The Vatican,” she manages to caricature both the LGBTQ and Fox News-viewing communities with one clunker of a line: “It’s no wonder all the scandals are involving hurting little boys/If y’all just fucked each other, did some poppers, you’d see God and finally rejoice.”
Martinez’s misguided ambition approaches camp in the Sontagian sense. The revenge fantasy track “Is This a Cult?” painstakingly details the saga of Circle mobilizing her fellow commune sisters to overthrow and dismember their douchey foreman before hilariously summarizing, “We killed the leader and now we’re on top,” like Netflix dialogue for those not paying attention. I did, however, laugh out loud on “The Plague” when, after Martinez sings, “Put your mask on, bastard,” literal cough sound effects arrive in line with the refrain’s (sick) beat drop.
Admirably, Martinez has sought to make an album pointedly about global affairs rather than distract us from them like so many other pop artists choose to do. And Hades does succeed when Martinez relieves herself of the need to make hamfisted woke pop: “Disney Princess,” which traces Circle’s deal with the Mickey-eared devil for a chance at pop superstardom, is a slice of infectious pop-rock, and the back-to-back ballads “Avoidant” and “Monolith” highlight both Martinez’s sultry lower register and feathery falsetto. Since Hades is reportedly the first part of a diptych about dystopia and utopia, one can only hope that part two doesn’t just reflect our tumultuous times but actually makes them a little more bearable.
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This is the worst critic review of an album I’ve ever got to read, the excuses for calling this album “bad” are dumb and so is whoever wrote this.
I agree, he probably is the exact type of person Melanie was calling out. Takes one to know one..
Agree completely. It’s appalling to me that “White Boy With A Gun” most certainly DOES indicate “how the pillow talk went awry” but apparently it was too much for the reviewer to grasp. And that in that song, “Possession” and “Monolith”, she also repeats the lyric “you’ll never see me” no less than 5 times, and he still didn’t get it. Case in point for everything she’s trying to say with this album. It’s certainly fine to say you didn’t like it, but saying it’s “insubstantial” is ridiculous on its face.
he’s so mysognistic honestly wouldn’t really expect a old ass white man to like this album she was shitting on them so I wouldn’t take his critic personally he probably felt attacked
I disagree with the review, but:
1. He’s not old.
2. What does the colour of his skin have to do with anything?
Bless your snowflake heart.
the way you are formatting this reply makes you seem very old. anyways being old and white makes you more likely to have bland taste saying this as a white person
Es un álbum absolutamente hermoso, una obra de arte que merece más reconocimiento. Merece ser escuchado por todos porque realmente vale la pena esperar por una música tan hermosa. crítica de este hombre blanco misógino No refleja la belleza del arte de este álbum porque no todo el mundo la comprende y se nota con esta reseña.
The justifications for calling this album bad are the absolute worst. Having a limited capacity to grasp irony and hyperbole is nothing to be ashamed of, but labeling an album ‘insubstantial’ simply because the lyrical content is hyper-specific rather than generalist is quite frankly ridiculous. You’re better off listening to an artist with generic lyrics that offer a broad, commercial appeal; that way, you can interpret them however you like, since your critical framework is clearly rooted in nothing but personal preference. That being said, I am never opening a Slant Magazine review again.
the words used in this slump are heavily biased, wow. and yet, the explanation on why it’s a one and a half star isn’t even enough. just full of exaggerated buzzwords and biased viewpoint.
Sabia que no estaba loco y que algo estaba mal con el álbum, Melanie dejo tan al margen la sutileza que la caracterizaba y la volvió inexistente recurriendo a letras tan descriptivas y cursis en el mal sentido que volvieron sus canciones densas y faltas de cadencia, sus trabajos anteriores eran comparablemente buenos, este simplemente se siente asfixiante, las letras son tan agresivas y caóticas que más que una canción parecen un manifiesto de quejas insustanciales que se aprovechan del momento actual, dejo de lado tanto la instrumentación y nos dejó sin estribillos que tararear, quisó decir tanto que el mensaje se volvió tan denso que al final a nadie le importó y solo deseas ir a la siguiente canción de lo agobiante que se siente, solo un par conservan su estilo caracteristico y son disfrutables, y que sus fans intenten responder a estas críticas con “eres un misógino” ó “te sientes aludido a su critica social”, no la deja mejor parada, solo termina en una caricatura de lo que su supuesto mensaje trata de dar y socava un movimiento muy importante en la actualidad.
What he forgot to add was The Bravery to this review. The BRAVERY to hold the shield for the voiceless, the audacity to wield a sword to the status quo, and the gall to speak to those that vibrate on higher frequencies than me. SO IN A WAY TO PLEASE THE GROUND DWELLERS AND SECURE A DEMONination OF FUTURE pleasures of the flesh I will rate this 1 and a half stars to please thee.
Now DO I GET MY PAT ON THE HEAD FROM THE MONOPOLY MAN.
Seeing how nobody likes the review, it would probably be in your best interest to listen to HADES once more and try to actually understand where Martinez comes from. This album is written to shit on people just like you, especially CHATROOM.