Madison Beer - Locket
On her third album, Madison Beer teases change, but mostly plays it safe.
Madison Beer has been something of a household name in the entertainment industry for several years. However, her music has oftentimes ended up overshadowed by her other ventures. On her third studio album, locket, released January 17th via Epic Records/Sing It Loud, Beer makes her strongest attempt yet at a defining statement.
The album starts off strong, with a slow, hazy, intriguing buildup on the opener “locket theme”, followed by the pulsing energy of “yes, baby”. This opening functions very well as a way to hook in the listener and get them invested in what else the project has to offer.
The best element of this record are the vocal performances. Madison Beer’s vocals are silky and confident, and she also displays some really good range on a few of the tracks. The harmonies and backing vocals are also very well-placed and produced to perfection, particularly on songs like “bad enough”, which is a major highlight of the project. Lyrically, locket is fairly straightforward, but still mostly delivers solid writing about the ups and downs of romance.
The instrumentals are very well-produced, with soft, flowing melodic synths and atmospheric, mesmerizing mixes. However, the production is also where the major question with the record arises. The three singles - “make you mine”, “yes baby” and “bittersweet” feel pretty much unrelated to the rest of the album in terms of their sound. While the singles lean heavily in an electropop direction, with significant house influence on the first two, the remaining tracks on locket return to a soft pop-soul sound more similar to Madison Beer’s previous music. It feels as though, despite the singles’ success, Beer decided to avoid big risks instead of following through with the bolder new direction for an entire album.
Overall, that is the main issue with an otherwise solid project: locket shows off several individually strong traits about Madison Beer’s music - decent lyrics, great vocals and excellent production - but doesn’t fully come together into a picture of defined artistic identity. It’s an enjoyable listening experience, and an unquestionable step forward in Beer’s career, but still leaves open the question as to what her unique niche is within the highly saturated modern pop landscape.
6.8/10
