To Halsey, an album is a body of work, not just a collection of songs. Nowhere in her discography is this ethos more present than on her new record Manic, out Jan. 17. Across 16 tracks, the singer who was born Ashley Frangipane presents an album “made by Ashley for Halsey,” and it’s her third album, but the first of its kind in her history.
Listening to Manic, it’s easy to imagine how much love and enjoyment she put into the organization of it, the audio samples and interludes almost serving as chapter breaks. It’s an accumulation of who she is in a specific moment.
Back in September, she talked at the Grammy Museum about the way the album’s purpose shifted over time. “I tried to be angry, and I was so calm and so happy and proud, and felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be,” she said. “I sat down to make a list of things I didn’t like about myself because I thought it would help me make an angry album, and I wrote it and I cried. I read it and let some of my friends read it, and after writing it, I couldn’t find any anger at myself, I just found forgiveness. I looked at the list and said, some of these things are true, some are not. You may feel that way about yourself, but it’s okay, you’re going to be okay." Manic, an album about acceptance and shifting emotion, is the embodiment of that statement.
For fans, the album comes with listening instructions from the artist herself. Two days before her album release, she tweeted a request: follow the track list order for the first album listen. “Some songs go together. Halves of a whole. so when Manic is out, pls don’t skip ur excited asses to a random song,” she wrote. So this is our review of Manic, in order, track by track, parts of a whole.
X content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
“Ashley”
When Halsey first released her track list, from the title of this song alone it was evident that Halsey’s mindset approaching album three would be different. As far as introductions go, this one is heavy. Halsey doesn’t mince words — this is going to be an album about pain. Her lyrics are blunt: “Took my heart and sold it out/To a vision that I wrote myself/And I don’t wanna be somebody in America/Just fighting the hysteria/I only wanna die some days.” This album was hard for her to write, so it should be hard to listen to too. The track ends with an audio sample of antiheroine Clementine Kruczynski, from one of Halsey’s favorite films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: “I'm just a f*cked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours.”
“Clementine”
“Some songs go together. Halves of a whole,” Halsey said, and right off the bat, she is braiding her tracks together based on the title alone (another callback to Eternal Sunshine). “Clementine” was first released as a promotional single ahead of the album, but placed next to a line from the film that inspired it, the song is a different listening experience. From the start of the album, Halsey introduces herself as the antiheroine.
“Graveyard”
“Graveyard” feels the most sonically congruent to the artist we knew Halsey to be prior to this album: the slant rhymes, the tempo, the young energy mark it as pure Halsey. The song is surprisingly bright, coolly antithetical to subject matter. The lyrics before the final chorus, “It’s funny how/The warning signs can feel like they’re butterflies” are punctuated with an annotated gasp, like she’s out of breath. The natural sound doesn’t feel gratuitous, instead adding extra emotional ferocity to the moment.
“You should be sad”
“You should be sad” was released before the album release as well, and on its own, it’s a kiss-off ode to all the things you wish you said at the end of a relationship, with a revenge-fantasy music video that references work from pop queens Lady Gaga, Shania Twain, and Christina Aguilera. On the album, some of that snark dissipates, leaving a complex, layered feeling in its wake. Less anger, and more relief.
