Music Critic Noa Sacks review Madison Beer’s fourth studio album, claiming it is vulnerable and authentic
Madison Beer’s fourth studio album, Locket, has been highly anticipated, and it didn’t disappoint. Upon releasing ‘make you mine’ in February 2024, and then ‘yes baby’ and ‘bittersweet’ as pre-release singles in the more recent run-up to the album release, fans were nervous that Locket would take a more sexually explicit, dance-pop route than her previous albums. Madison’s aesthetic appeal surrounds a hyper-feminine, delicate, and lighter sound, so this apparent change made many nervous. However, Locket has every element of a classic Madison Beer album, even with its electro elements.
The central metaphor of the locket frames the album as a container for memory and pain.
It opens with the vocal layering of ‘locket theme’, immediately recalling earlier Madison Beer songs, such as the opening of ‘Homesick’. After the pre-release singles, this felt like reassurance that the Locket is an unmistakable Madison Beer album. She opens with a question, asking “Did you miss me? I like to pretend you did”, addressing both a past relationship and, subtly, her audience after time away. The central metaphor of the locket frames the album as a container for memory and pain. It is something delicate, beautiful, and carried close. “Pain on a necklace, set it down, I’m weightless” captures the album’s emotional arc: through revisiting these fragmented memories, she can release them. By the album’s opening, she realises that “everything that I could ever need is within me,” a realisation that sets up the album’s conclusion.
The album’s core spans many emotions. The most contentious of which exist in Locket’s sexy club tracks: ‘yes baby’ and ‘make you mine’. Though these tracks are fun, they appear to surrender to the industry, which has sexualised and objectified Madison since she became known. Given her public image, these tracks carry tension, raising questions of agency and control. However, as the album doesn’t fully commit to this role, these tracks seem to be individual moments, and not the rebrand that many thought was coming.
Though the album is slightly sporadic in its constant emotional shifts, it reflects the memory/Locket metaphor, and therefore works conceptually, if being inconsistent on the surface.
As well as this, Locket contains slower sensual moments in ‘for the night’, and self-critical yet shameless such as ‘bad enough’ and ‘healthy habit’ where Madison confronts her poor judgement. The most emotionally raw point on the album is the song ‘you’re still everything’, where Madison addresses her neglect within the relationship. The illusion collapses during ‘complexity’, where Madison asks, “How can I expect you to love me, when you don’t even love yourself?”, where she eventually recognises the relationship’s failure. The album ends with ‘nothing at all’, in which Madison accepts life’s impermanence and chooses to stop exerting energy on what is broken, finally setting the locket down and turning inward. Though the album is slightly sporadic in its constant emotional shifts, it reflects the memory/Locket metaphor, and therefore works conceptually, if being inconsistent on the surface.
Madison’s vocals on the album are excellent, with vocal highlights in ‘locket theme’ and ‘bad enough’. The album is sonically like her other work, with its immersive harmonies and delicate vocals, however, Locket presents a more electro sound than previous work, with Madison stepping into the dark feminine mystique that she is often branded with. There is something to be said that there is nothing particularly ‘new’ about this album. Many wanted Madison to rebrand herself for this release, as many believe that she has main pop girl potential, that is being ruined with safe music.
Many critics have stated that she is yet to find her voice, but I strongly disagree. There is a distinctive quality to her music, in its delicacy and femininity. As Madison herself has been branded, her music is pretty on the surface, but with emotional depth. Madison has made it clear in a recent interview that she is not competing with fellow popstars. She is merely making music that she enjoys, on her own terms. “This isn’t everything to me”, she told reporters on Locket’s release day. Though she has been criticised for having no identity, her authenticity in making music that she enjoys, and not rebranding herself every album into some different variation of the pop-star caricature, gives her identity. When critics ask for identity, what they mean to say, is ‘how are you different from everyone else?’. Genuine identity and authenticity aren’t in competition with others. Madison has a voice in her refreshing lack of competitiveness to her music. She isn’t trying to please everyone, she is just being herself, and that shows throughout her discography.
It tells an introspective story without trying to be something that it is not
If you love Madison, you will love Locket. It tells an introspective story without trying to be something that it is not. It isn’t overly poetic and metaphorical. Nor is it crass and explicit. Locket is vulnerable and authentically Madison. That being said, if you didn’t love Life Support, or Silence Between Songs, I doubt you would feel different about Locket. This is not a criticism, as both Madison and the fans seems happy, and that is all that matters.
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