Badlands
Astralwerks
Release date: August 28, 2015
By Shawal Ras
Follow @shawalras
This blue-haired tri-bi (FYI: biracial-bisexual-bipolar) lassie AKA Ashley Frangipane AKA Halsey has finally released her full-length debut last week and there’s a lot to say about this album.
Badlands, a conceptual alternative pop LP, is an interesting release, to be honest. It got this whole industrial undertones to it while still feels somewhat too mainstream for today’s pop standard.
Unlike the original individual sonic behind Lorde’s Pure Heroine and Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die, Badlands seems like a creation of multiple pop producers who ran on money, not creativity. The album falls flat cumulatively, but soars in a few tracks in its standard issue…
The album kicks off with ‘Castle’, an excellent trip-hop track about her own mental state after tormented by failures and heartbreak. “I’m headed straight for the castle, they wanna make me their queen, and there’s an old man sitting on the throne saying I probably shouldn’t be so mean,” she sings.
Then pops up ‘New Americana’, the first hit single from the album, embodies what I’ve written above easily. It’s a good pop track, IMO, but still, it feels like a generic generational anthem for Millennials with radio-ready chorus; “We are the new Americana, high on legal marijuana, raised on Biggie and Nirvana, we are the new Americana.”
Don’t be mad at me but I think it’s pretty calculated.
Another one of my favs is ‘Roman Holiday’, a track that runs of the theme of escapism. This is prolly the most radio-friendly track aside ‘New Americana’ and inspired by Audrey Hepburn’s same-titled 1953 film about escaping your very own existence for a while and to be with your love.
My ultimate numero uno track from this album is definitely ‘Haunting’. If you’re looking for a track that fits the album’s theme singlehandedly, this is the one. It’s a legit track with a vocal glitch building up to its 808s. It is pretty much a beautiful song about a love-and-hate relationship with two entities.
‘Ghost’, Ms. Frangipane’s first single from 2014, closes the album. Fitting, the song is the foundation of the idea behind Badlands, a state of mind and a metaphor of her desolate and lonely mind: “What happened to the soul that you used to be?,” she sings.
Other than those exceptionally reviewed tracks, I have a few more tracks listed among my favs: ‘Coming Down’, ‘Young God’, and ‘Control’.
As fictional as it may be, Badlands, like I said before, is an interesting project. It talks about real feelings, real struggles, real hope, and despite how manufactured it sounds like, this album is a mature release from the 20 year old. I’m definitely intrigued to see what she’ll release in the near future.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.