Review Summary: Creep-fest ahoy! And it's probably disturbing in hindsight.
Oh boy, what a doozy we have here. Currently the only album by a girl who had most likely nearly cemented herself as one of the rising stars of indie-pop whether or not you liked her, only for her to get accused of sexual assault to the surprise of her fanbase who are still trying to deny her guilt even though she admitted it (whether it was a surprise to her detractors or not is up for debate from what i've seen of them), and her career is now basically screwed. Even before the allegations came out, I had never liked Melanie. I always found her image to be a warning sign of a future "celebrity pedophile" (a la Gary Glitter), and the recent news definitely did not help matters.
"Cry Baby" is marketed as some sort of concept album about the terrible childhood of the apparently eponymous character who apparently ends up insane at the end of the album's story (as is rather typical for stuff like this). Lyrically, however, I could never see any of this. All it did for me was scream to my face "Tumblr user splashed their 'dark' and 'gothic' 'poetry' onto lines of paper mixed with a female Ian Watkins trying to get her sick desires out without actually committing crimes". It doesn't really help that the album seems have a fixation on sex and relationships:
"Tired, blue boy walks my way
Holding a girl's hand
That basic bitch leaves finally
Now I can take her man"
"It doesn't matter what you pull up to your home
We know what goes on inside
You call that ass your own, we call that silicone
Silly girl with silly boys"
As for the musical aspects, it ranges from tolerable but basic to downright awful. It can't seem to decide whether it wants to be straight up pop or some kind of alternative album: you have trumpets on songs like "Dollhouse" but electronic elements woven throughout the entire album. Martinez's voice sounds like a pitched-down Elmo having its throat slit while a semitruck runs over a parakeet that won't stop cursing because it listened to 90's Green Day. Bizarre comparison, but that's literally the only way how I can describe how irritating her voice is to me without naming some other controversial bands that are pretty much universally loathed. As for the production, its a mixed bag: "Dollhouse" (again) sounds like unmixed piles of random crap thrown on top of each other, while other songs such as "Pacify Her" aren't too bad with it.
I genuinely can't think of anything even near-positive to say about this debut in any aspect that isn't the production, and even that's a partial thing. The lyrics are either just flat-out disturbing or straight-up laughable, while the music is just...basic. While I initially was optimistic that she could hopefully improve and craft a song that was good at least instrumentally, all optimism is thrown out the window for me as I don't really feel comfortable listening to anything else by her due to those revelations. Even if what had happened had never happened, I would still say that this is an album to steer quite clear of. If you want some decent indie pop, i'd look anywhere except the "dynamic duo" of Martinez and Halsey (who I will get to...eventually.)
