I'm sort of questioning my sense of self and personality currently and I wish to preoccupy myself with something more productive so I don't end up spiraling and elaborating very vaguely and confusing the hell out of one of my friends or something. So, for anyone who'd seen my previous opinion, I have a completely new view now of Melanie Martinez's new album and era- HADES, featuring Circle! I judged it far too quickly and far too harshly at first...I'm not sure what that was about. And yet, despite my first reaction of "I'm not vibing with it, I'm slightly disappointed"...I found myself continuing to listen and look into the album anyways. And slowly started to go, "Oh, but THE PLAGUE is good too...and CHATROOM..." AND HELLO, WEIGHT WATCHERS IS SO GOOD? WHAT A WONDERFUL EARWORM! AND SO ARE A LOT OF OTHER SONGS FROM IT. To readdress one song in particular I'd been critical of regarding the lyrics, THE VATICAN is not against religion or disrespecting religious beliefs and such. It's specifically targeted as criticizing hyper-religious men with closeted sexualities who justify mistreating women. I pounced on it before I really thought through the whole song and the meaning of it as a whole. I just adore the concept of Circle and the new era of a story Melanie's cooked up, man...absolute work of art. It's unheard of, it's bold, it's approaching the issues and ways of society and people and the world headfirst and poetically. Admittedly, I believe my heart is still set mostly in PORTALS, but HADES is honestly pretty close! Another album for this era will be released this year from Melanie, so I've heard- likely a deluxe version?- so, we'll see if the PORTALS era will still be my favorite afterwards...
