Melanie Martinez
Cry Baby

An American twenty-something, guilty of having participated in a pointless talent show by offering a far from memorable cover of a bad song by a lousy artist (assuming Britney Spears can even be called that), Melanie Martinez didn't exactly catch my attention positively. In fact, given what's been said, one would want to avoid her like the plague. And yet... yet three years after that disposable debut, the girl released the classic pop album you don't expect.

Now, it's not like this "Cry Baby" is entirely without flaws, quite the contrary: certain nods to Lorde or Lana Del Rey in tracks like "Sippy Cup" or "Carousel" are rather unpalatable, and in general, the songwriting winks more than a little at the charts, resulting in several instances of being less than brilliant (see "Soap" for instance). After all, given the premises, we couldn't expect anything different. However, it must be said that at other times the album sounds quite captivating: it could be the not always perfect but unexpectedly mature and unusual lyrics for the genre, it could be Martinez's voice that's at times whispered, at times childlike, or that measured interweaving of drum machines, electronic samples, and synthetic xylophones and music boxes. In its entirety, "Cry Baby" turns out to be a very personal album, maybe not incredibly original, but certainly solid. One can indeed sense the attempt, not always successful, to give the album a certain uniqueness, not only sonically but also conceptually: the song lyrics, all written by Melanie, focus on a little protagonist, the "Cry Baby" of the title, and her progressive personality degeneration, through failures in personal relationships (“Carousel”, “Pity Party”, “Training Wheels”), a family so perfect to the eye yet so disastrous (“Sippy Cup”, “Dollhouse”), and even an attempted rape (“Tag, You’re It”, “Milk and Cookies”), leading to a complete distortion of the world around her (“Mrs. Potato Head”) and the acceptance of what all this has on her own psyche (“Mad Hatter”).

Themes not exactly light, which, combined with the above-described sounds, give shape to a pleasing noir-tinted electro-pop that, despite some occasional downbeat or déjà vu moments, delivers a refreshing breath of fresh air in a mainstream scene lately as flat as ever. Full passing grade, therefore, for a studio debut that doesn't make you scream masterpiece, but which is nonetheless appreciable—provided you overlook the fact that it's still an album designed for the charts and should be listened to as such.