“HADES,” Melanie Martinez’s fourth studio album, is about Circle, a young woman who has turned from flesh to machine. In her efforts to escape a cult to save her mother’s life, she ends up at the headquarters of Hades AI, forced to become a synthesized popstar to appease the last wish of her mother.
“HADES” is also about Martinez. Eager Melanie stan, I am not jumping up and down for joy with my fingers in my ears going “la la la” at all the glaring flaws. As someone who used to adore her work, I am utterly disappointed.
To explain why, I first need to explain my connection to her work.
I discovered Martinez in the way most little girls with an iPad did, through anime girl nightcore videos; the kind of music that’s sped up with a drawing of a cool girl in the background. This was in 2016, right when she had released her first studio album “Crybaby.” As a moody 9 year old myself, I was instantly hooked.
When she had come back with her third studio album, “PORTALS,” an album at its core about rebirth and second chances while leaving who you no longer want to be behind, I felt my connection to her work deepen. Not only was I at a stage like this in my life, I had also started to rediscover my love for fairies which are prominent in the album. It also just so happened to come out on my birthday.
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However, right behind the tail end of her success with “PORTALS” came a rediscovery of a heinous sexual assault accusation with one of her two public apologies being posted to the social platform X stating “she never said no to what we chose to do together.” 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.
That is to say then, “HADES,” at least to me, is complicated. I can definitively say I don’t 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?
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 “GRUDGES.”
I’m not quite sure how Martinez went from last album’s “MILK OF THE SIREN” in the deluxe version — 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 — to “GRUDGES”. Which, literally, has the lyrics, “Ha, turn me into a I don’t give a single flying f— f—ity, f—/f— f— machine.”
I just…I don’t 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’s album “CryBaby” that was released when she was 21 had much more clever writing and wordplay even in the weakest songs.
The track “POSSESSION,” which first came out as a single to tease the album, has such a whimsical charm that yes, kind of reheats Ashniko’s 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’t particularly find any lyrics as powerful or clever, but it certainly had a fun sound. I can get behind that.
A few other songs as well also had a lovely sound, with Martinez in the first track “GARBAGE” 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.
Back to “The Principal,” 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. “SPIDER WEB,” a skillfully crafted song about how Martinez views phones as a sticky trap ready to suck you in.
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.
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’s sad to say that I don’t think it will ever come back.