an aching collaboration with the country
singer Sturgill Simpson, which captures
how her strengths have evolved.
if trainor and KeSha are artists
trying to keep up with pop’s changing
tides, then Halsey is a good example of
someone riding the waves with ease.
Her new album, Manic, is stylistically
varied enough to accommodate guests
from alt-rock icon Alanis Morissette to
BTS firebrand Suga. The title acknowl-
edges her bipolar disorder; she wrote
the album in a manic phase and has
discussed her mental health candidly in
interviews.
A core of rich, raw emotion is
what holds Halsey’s work together
when it threatens to come unglued,
and it’s what propelled Manic single
“Without Me”—an acid reflection on an
unfaithful ex-boyfriend—to the No. 1
spot on the singles charts last year.
Whether you’re relating to her or feel-
ing mortified by her, it’s impossible to
look away. That intensity unifies Manic
as she flies from theater-kid balladry
(“ clementine”) and country-flecked
breakup anthems (“You should be sad”)
to the dewy electro pop of “More.”
There are also a select few artists
who can combine the powerful celeb-
rity of the old guard with the dynamism
of last year’s graduating class. Selena
Gomez has been at this long enough to
accrue more than 166 million followers
on Instagram, but her comeback album,
Rare, doesn’t feel like an event. Instead,
it’s airy and surprisingly unassuming.
Released in the wake of personal tur-
moil and a battle with lupus that neces-
sitated a kidney transplant, its approach
to self-care and the language of recovery
is conversational and refreshing. Mini-
mal arrangements, inflected with notes
from R&B and Latin music, accentuate
Gomez’s thin voice and turn a weakness
into a strength. Whether any of her con-
temporaries will follow her lead remains
to be seen, but Gomez proves there’s
still a way to be a pop star in this mo-
ment of change. □KESHA,
High Road
(Jan. 31)HAL SEY,
Manic
(Jan. 17)MEGHAN TRAINOR,
Treat Myself
(Jan. 31)SELENA GOMEZ,
Rare
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