Melanie Martinez’s ‘Hades’ is an 18-track alt-pop reckoning with toxic masculinity, misogyny, climate crisis, and the rot of modern fame
Melanie Martinez has always seemed more comfortable hiding behind a concept than stepping into the spotlight, and “Hades“ makes a convincing case that the concept was never the armor everyone assumed it was. Released March 27 via Atlantic Records, her fourth studio album arrives as the first half of a planned double release, the dystopian counterpart to a utopian album still to come. Across 18 tracks and 70-plus minutes, it positions itself as a cracked mirror held up to a world already broken, and it does not flinch once.
That ambition is earned, and the execution is largely extraordinary. Martinez described “Hades” as less about imagining a distant dystopian future than recognizing destructive power structures that already exist, where “control” is masked as “protection” and “exploitation” is framed as “opportunity.” You feel that philosophy in every lyric. Each song assigns a different target: toxic masculinity, climate inaction, body shaming, religious hypocrisy, entertainment industry abuse, billionaire greed, and the psychological violence of social media. The album closes, almost defiantly, with love.
The Sweet Voice That Bites Back
What makes the record genuinely unsettling is how Martinez deploys her instrument. Her voice is high, girlish, often deliberately saccharine, and the contrast between that sweetness and what she is actually singing creates a friction that is the album’s primary engine. She will begin a verse sounding like a lullaby and end it sounding like a threat. On tracks produced and co-written with longtime collaborator CJ Baran, whose credits include Marina, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Panic! at the Disco, the melodic electronic-alternative-pop framework holds firm underneath even as Martinez pushes the vocals into increasingly unhinged territory. There are moments, particularly mid-album, where her voice curdles from sweet to deranged with no warning at all. They are genuinely exciting.
The lyrics are the sharpest thing here. Track titles alone tell the story: “White Boy With a Gun,” “Is This a Cult?,” “Monopoly Man,” “Batshit Intelligence,” “Weight Watchers,” “The Vatican.” These are not subtitles. On “Disney Princess,” she confronts the entertainment industry’s consumption of young women with the kind of precision that only comes from personal experience. Her observations about body image carry a visceral specificity that lands somewhere between confession and indictment. The full 18-track run demands patience, and it rewards it. The first listen will almost certainly require a pause somewhere in the middle.
A Double Album Built for the Moment
Context sharpens everything here. In a fan poll conducted by Billboard, “Hades“ was ranked as the most popular new release of the week, receiving 67% of the vote and outperforming releases by Conan Gray, Raye, Charlie Puth, and Miley Cyrus. That response makes sense. There is an audience for exactly this kind of uncompromising alt-pop fury, and Martinez has spent a decade cultivating it. Her previous album, “Portals,” peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 while she performed it entirely behind a Bjork-esque mask. “Hades” removes no masks literally, but the lyrics are the most exposed she has ever been.
The album’s closing turn toward love is not a softening. It reads more like a reminder that rage without tenderness is just noise. Martinez knows the difference, and “Hades” makes that clear across every one of its 70 minutes. A fiery, considered, and genuinely important record.
