Halsey - Manic

The Guardian 80

(Capitol Records)
Her openness and lyrical specificity make listening to the 25-year-old’s dramatic third album feel like reading someone else’s diary

From the depressed self-medication documented in the emo-rap scene to the soul-baring by the likes of Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez, we’re living in an age of radical transparency in pop – and no one is more open than Ashley Frangipane, AKA 25-year-old singer Halsey.

The Guardian 80

(Capitol)

If Billie Eilish is the US pop star already defining the 2020s with her low-key rasp, then 25-year-old Halsey feels like the Pink to her Robyn. Both have grammar-averse tracklistings and are celebrated for their “hyper-specific” lyrics, whatever that means, ticking off subjects including depression, drugs and body image. Halsey’s amorphous sound, however, while hoovering up clickety R&B, alt-rock, country and Lana Del Rey’s oeuvre, also reaches the blare-your-lungs-out heights of emo bands such as My Chemical Romance. A guest feature from Alanis Morissette suggests a passing of the angsty baton.

Halsey is less a pop chameleon than a musical magpie and Manic is a pristinely produced album that sounds a bit like everything you know, but better (Still Learning is a banger, like Evanescence with steelpan). Her songs illuminate the anxiety of fame, questioning her own narcissism and neediness with unusually brutal detail. She is, possibly, as underlined by the film dialogue lifted from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on Clementine, “just a fucked-up girl looking for my own piece of mind,” which is far more relatable than a ponytail-perfect star singing about empowerment. It’s no wonder her music is finally connecting.

Pitchfork 65

Written from her own perspective, Halsey’s third album flips lonely self-awareness into a kind of strength. But some of its most compelling moments are overpowered by the tedium of modern pop.