The Singles Jukebox

We just couldn’t help ourselves: Amnesty 2k23 is continuing for a few extra days before wrapping up for good. First, Micha asks us to revisit an artist we last covered eight years ago…

[Video]
[3.75]

Ian Mathers: Whenever we cover someone on the Jukebox I’m not already familiar with, I wind up looking up what I can about the artist/album/song, just for my own edification. In this case, between having a Wikipedia page with a “Sexual assault allegation” subheading, the language I saw her fans using to defend her/defuse said allegations on reddit, and reading the lyrics to “Evil” afterwards… well, I got the ick. (For the record: the genders and identities of the relevant people do not exacerbate or mitigate any of the accusations for me, and even if I grant for the sake of argument the most steel-manned version of Martinez’s defenses, even if her accuser was every bad thing claimed here or else, that still does not eliminate the ick or make me like the song.) And seeing as how I am not a court of law and I can neither punish Martinez in any way nor do I have any desire to do so, having the ick does not need to meet any further burden of proof for me to say I don’t particularly want to hear this one again.
[4]

Nortey Dowuona: Maybe you shouldn’t make a song about how someone is calling you evil when you abuse your friend’s love and trust and can only say they didn’t tell you that is what you did. That IS evil.
[0]

Taylor Alatorre: Thank you, Melanie Martinez, for deciding to stop making kindercore concept albums with song titles like “Sippy Cup” and “Lunchbox Friends,” so I can listen to your stuff without feeling like I’d be aiming a flamethrower at my eternal soul. “Evil” is still rooted in the rococo fantasy impulses that have animated Martinez’s career — there’s a stock sound effect of an egg being cracked — but it puts them to more workmanlike ends, crafting a realistically spiteful break-up narrative that’s upsetting within the song’s moral universe but not viscerally so in ours. That straight-outta-Guyville guitar chug, steady and reliable as ever, helps ground the spritely vocal theatrics in something tangible, and the decision to let the chorus marinate for a few extra bars was a bold yet correct one. I’m probably grading on a curve due to low expectations, and judging from the Alex Garland-meets-Tim Burton aesthetics, I assume the rest of the album is nothing like this. But still: “tears of oxalate”? That’s one of the most genuinely grunge-sounding lyrics this side of No Code.
[8]

Michael Hong: She snarls and fills the whole thing with cool details (the sound of an egg cracking when she sings, “wanna see the yolk”). Neat moves until the muffled framing lifts, the realization that she’s not the victim of this story, but the girl who once wrote a diss track against someone who leveled accusations of sexual abuse against her.
[0]

Frank Kogan: Interesting vocal, halfway between cute and smoky.
[4]

Alfred Soto: The professionalism of its structure — the hooks go boom-boom — doesn’t endear to me this honing of angst and decent rhymes. 
[4]

Tara Hillegeist: This wouldn’t have been out of place on Everything Is Embarrassing, which does about track for where Martinez’s general inspirations draw from, compared to her contemporaries; she’s still about two decades out of date, only now she’s grown out of her kinderwhore-but-make-it-more-coquette era and settling herself solidly in A&Rechtshai’d also-ran wonderland. To be clear — there’s nothing that is unappealing about that steady grunge-fuzzed bass lick keeping the song grinding along beneath its childish piano twinkling and vocals that sound like they were sung into enough sheets of gauze to cover Martinez’ signature squeaky pitch, with more sheets layered on the squeakier her voice threatens to get. And the lyrics are some of the strongest I’ve seen from her yet; certainly, her target demo could do worse for a self-liberation anthem than a singalong that proves this catchy and caustic beneath the sandpaper faux-distress sonically draped over every word — better this than, say, “Alice Practice“, almost certainly, yes? But I still feel like something’s missing, here, and I wonder what it says about myself and Martinez alike that the best way I can think to articulate that lack is, indeed, to ask all over again, if wincing for different reasons this time than the last: what if she just — acted her age, for once?
[5]

Will Adams: Because I refuse to stop melting my brain on Twitter, I log on daily and am continuously confronted with the fact that Melanie Martinez has many, many fans. Specifically, Stan Twitter, who regularly include her in prompt tweets like “WHICH POP GIRL IS TAKING IT IN 2023” or “YOU HAVE $15. WHAT ARE YOU BUYING” alongside everyone from Lana and Taylor to Charli and Carly. Having only ever heard approximately 1.5 songs of hers, my reaction is always, “is she really that special?” Listening to “Evil,” I hear the appeal: “Kill Bill” cuteness over scuzzy indie pop. I still don’t hear the special.
[3]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: An innovative, path-breaking exercise at the intersection of Yeule and Disney Channel Original Movie Soundtracks.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: This is such a crowded genre, there’s no reason to listen to songs this plodding by people this shitty.
[1]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The plinking piano doesn’t set itself up against the rest of the instrumentation to provide the necessary contrast: her knowing devilishness just comes off poorly rehearsed. The schoolyard chant of a chorus doesn’t help.
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: Me, the late Prodigy, and Melanie Martinez all have at one point hailed from the greater Hempstead/Queens area and similarly have a miserable personality. Now, while I am not shooting up Demerol in order to function, nor have I had any issues with sexual assault allegations (P and M, respectively, for those who don’t know), I too suffer from a sort of paranoia and gothic mistrust around the world around me; gothic in the general instability and unreliable nature… and y’know, overbearing maudlin evil spooky shit. Which is why I have always had time for how “cringe” Martinez’s music has read for people with her kinderwhore one-trick pony provocations. I don’t mind the Hot Topic narcissism and edgelord tendencies because at the end of the day, it’s a reminder of how easy it is to believe in truth as victimhood. “See the horns on my head they’re from goddesses; On God.” is easily my favorite non-rap lyric this year to overanalyze because it’s a perfect synthesis of New York ethnic AAVE blended in with faux-feminist self-appointed martyrdom in an alt-rock style. The witches you could not burn wearing fishnets and Timbs, but without any of the seams from such a wave of clichés showing. But whereas Prodigy’s foes were the great peril of fake MCs and/or fake thugs, Martinez’s foe are her own fans. She already demonstrated her obsession with this on the APPALLINGLY BAD K-12 record, one of the worst artistic expressions about “cancel culture” you could ever ask for and a distasteful response to accountability. “Evil” (and most of Portals) is better for avoiding jeering in favor of defiance, yet it still makes me incredibly sad that all Martinez wants to do (like so many people in the world) is see snakes and betrayal, and those who would tear her down and live life in hopeless nihilistic rebellion in any direction. I remember craving that sense of power to mask for my own senses of guilt and cowardice, and how worthless that feels after you’ve had to live on it for so long that it’s all that defines you. Maybe there isn’t a world without armor and thorns, but I wish to God I knew people dreamed about it anymore. It made being unable to believe feel less painful.
[7]