It is pop and sentimental, a cohesively varied ride that gives listeners plenty of singles to pluck out based on their own slice of creative madness.
Manic revels in the explorative genre-pop bombast, letting the delicates twinkle, and the snarls bare their teeth; yet it's the soul that shines dominantly. It's her most complete work to date.
Over 16 tracks, Manic is a chaotic amalgamation of self-analysis, rage, depression, ecstasy, and growth that sees its creator managing the messiness of fame while trying to stay true to herself.
The album finds a way to weave together multiple emotions, sounds, and genres and shows off Frangipane’s versatility as an artist while still acting as an incredibly cohesive and seamless album.
It all adds up to a very enjoyable record, one that fits in well with the current pop landscape while also working beyond it.
Freighted with unflinching lyrics, Manic is a magnificent - and magnificently raw - pop confessional.
Halsey is less a pop chameleon than a musical magpie and Manic is a pristinely produced album that sounds a bit like everything you know, but better.
Even at its most erratic, the album is tied together by Halsey’s distinctive voice – sweet, tight-throated, and with something almost digitised about it, though the big, undisguised breaths she sometimes takes contradict that.
Her openness and lyrical specificity make listening to the 25-year-old’s dramatic third album feel like reading someone else’s diary.
Manic is about the here-and-now real world and her fight for a place in it as a young woman.
Manic is her most personal album to date ... It's haunting, heartbreaking and breathtakingly beautiful.
By stripping back the stories to their very personal core, Halsey has made a record that is as thrilling as it is vulnerable, and her best effort yet.
Manic is indeed an appropriate name for an album so filled with twists and turns it feels like a double-LP crammed into the course of a 47-minute record.
Manic is an imperfect collection of tracks - with high peaks of sheer genius along with the low falls - but it still manages to fill eyes with tears, hearts with love and minds with thoughts as it explores the life and times of a 25-year-old in startling, stark detail.
Manic is a refreshingly intimate portrait of a young woman navigating fame, femininity, and mental illness—among other things.
Manic is a rich and often confounding listen, an expansive album filled to the brim with the imagined worlds Halsey’s built for herself in the real one.
Her intentions are always loud and clear, but too often the music doesn’t live up to them.
Sadly, some of the album’s most compelling moments are overpowered by the tedium of modern pop.
Musically, it’s all so calculatedly quirky that you almost wonder if Pee-wee Herman wasn’t called in as a consultant.
There are some good moments here, but even the best of them can’t help Halsey get out of her own way.
Instead of silencing those who insist she lacks identity, Halsey becomes lost in a sea of superstar guest performances and crisp production, falling short of her lofty ambitions.
"Manic" kinda sums up how I feel about Halsey's music in general. It's just... generic. I liked some of the production on here and there were actually a few great highlights. "3am" is a pop-punk-infused track and the only one I deem as actually catchy and "Dominic's Interlude" is... well, it's Dominic Fike. What else did I expect? Unfortunately, the record squanders itself into "sad" pop with nothing to say and nothing to feel from it.
Fav Tracks: ... read more
Woah, she makes pop music but she says the F word? ABSOLUTELY G R O U N D B R E A K I N G.
I just don't get it. This feels like the XXXTENTACION's ? of pop music; it's full of edgy song titles and is an absolute mess of an album. Some highlights here and there and decent features, but all in all just has no real direction. Manic is essentially pop's answer to that album. "The singer’s refusal to pick a lane is what makes the album her most compelling effort to date." But is ... read more
Let's take one thing out of the way: "SUGA's Interlude" sounds like a Walmart version of "Love The Way You Lie" - and I'm damn sure she doesn't know shit the man is saying. Is that manic enough for this album? Absolutely not.
Halsey's "Manic" is a pure ghost house: You either find a secret exit, or die stuck in worst kind of cheap pop music. While Spotify still struggles to recommend me songs while measuring the chinese versions of k-pop tracks and ambient music ... read more
Descrito como uma jornada em um período de mania, "Manic" abraça temas como busca pela identidade, relacionamentos e sentimentalidades em geral. Uma montanha-russa de momentos com histórias reais de uma mulher muito distante do que já foi em "Badlands" (2015).
Seja nas canções de término como "Without Me" e "You should be sad" ou nas emotivas e pessoais "More" e "Still Learning", ... read more
This was the first time I actually enjoyed an Halsey's album in it's full (later to be eaten up). Tho still not her best take, it's definitely her most emotion-wrecking to sensitivity in the writing. It's an imperfect collection and while it's an imperfect take, it's really what makes the album quite special. Ashley sounds honest, sounds more mature and she's actually more vocal about her rollercoaster of events. Being more stripped down really helped her putting the rawness needed for most of ... read more
1 | Ashley 3:06 | 78 |
2 | clementine 3:54 | 75 |
3 | Graveyard 3:01 | 83 |
4 | You should be sad 3:25 | 83 |
5 | Forever ... (is a long time) 2:47 | 77 |
6 | Dominic's Interlude 1:16 with Dominic Fike | 67 |
7 | I HATE EVERYBODY 2:51 | 71 |
8 | 3am 3:54 | 86 |
9 | Without Me 3:21 | 82 |
10 | Finally // beautiful stranger 3:41 | 83 |
11 | Alanis' Interlude 2:41 with Alanis Morissette | 71 |
12 | killing boys 2:23 | 75 |
13 | SUGA's Interlude 2:18 with SUGA | 61 |
14 | More 2:33 | 77 |
15 | Still Learning 3:31 | 75 |
16 | 929 2:54 | 74 |
#4 | / | The Music |
#8 | / | Good Morning America |
#18 | / | Billboard |
#25 | / | Rolling Stone |
#28 | / | Slant Magazine |
#40 | / | NME |
#43 | / | musicOMH |
#45 | / | The Young Folks |
#50 | / | Idolator |
#53 | / | The Alternative |