MADISON BEER - Locket

Bear with me and follow me through this brief introductory preamble, I promise it will all tie in perfectly with what we're about to say about Madison Beer and her third album "Locket". "Serving cunt", for all its blunt vulgarity and its far-from-elegant translation, is an expression originally used within the ballroom scene and more recently spread widely throughout the LGBTQ+ community, employed to praise a femininity that's disruptive, superior, simply undeniable. It was only a matter of time before the same expression came to be used to describe the many stars populating the international pop firmament, and by extension their various discographic phases, sometimes with colorful variations on the theme.

And here we return to the protagonist of our story: after Justin Bieber had put her in the spotlight through his covers, and after a good decade spent cutting her teeth on pleasant if anodyne pop with a retro flavor, it seemed the singer and musician from Jericho, New York had finally found her way toward that kind of service. Sharp beats, a voice as glacial as it is capable of widespread soulfulness, a glamour aesthetic steeped in creeping darkness. Everything was in place for a dark, pounding dance project (even tinged with horror, see the tribute video to "Jennifer's Body" shot for "Make You Mine"), tailored to a voice as versatile as few others on today's pop scene. It was all there, because after all these premises Beer emerges with a record that almost entirely disavows this approach, returning to square one. With a preference for a more acoustic production palette and r&b shades harking back to her vintage-leaning past, she rushes straight back to a comfort zone too cozy not to inhabit for another album cycle. In doing so, though, the entire journey toward building a defined identity evaporates in a few simple steps.

With the inexplicable absence of "15 Minutes", relegated to a shimmering stray single, the most interesting Madison Beer only finds footing in the aforementioned "Make You Mine" and in the hi-nrg snap of "Yes Babe" (the dark energy to carry with you through all of 2026), leaving the rest of her portfolio to a by-the-numbers chase after midtempos and ballads where personality remains a mirage. Sometimes the imitation game works with surprising ease (the echoes of Ariana Grande's "Eternal Sunshine" in "Angel Wings"), other times it tips into caricature (impossible not to think of Billie Eilish in the acoustic ballad "For The Night"), but Beer's character always remains evanescent, more inclined to trail behind than to assert itself, to inhabit other people's spaces rather than live in her own. And while the shrine to the aforementioned Grande keeps reappearing, dredged up from different eras (now the subtle melancholy of "Sweetener" in "You're Still Everything", now the electric jitteriness of "Thank U, Next" in "Complexity"), there's also room for a final homage to Olivia Rodrigo, in a "Nothing At All" that perhaps sums up the crux of Madison Beer's entire latest poetics.

In short, precious little "serving cunt", right when it seemed she had finally found the right path. What remains is the lovely voice, the general pleasantness, and of course the image: but how can you let yourself go for someone singing "I'm afraid of getting better, I'm afraid it gets too good"?

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02/02/2026