In a world where female pop stars seem to be coming and going like crazy, including Dua Lipa, RAYE, Mabel, and now, singer Anne-Marie trading the spotlight. This debut album has been long awaited and long overdue, and has been in the making for some time, but, off the bat of a surprisingly good run of singles ('Alarm', 'Ciao Adios', 'Then') I became curious about how this album was going to turn out in the end.
There's no denying that Anne-Marie stand out from the crowd, sporting a significantly more intense and somewhat understated vocal delivery that you don't often get in pop, but also has demonstrated that she has pipes that could work against more rock instrumentation, possibly filling the role that P!nk left behind and that Demi Lovato failed to fill.
As such, I was willing to give this album a fair chance, even if I was virtually certain the the producers would not allow her to push more in that rock direction. But, even with that, how's 'Speak Your Mind'?
Honestly, it's a mess. The kind of album with insane highs, but horrendous lows that level out into something that's pleasant, but the furthest thing from cohesive or tonally consistent. But it's not like I could have expected anything less given the number of producers and co-writers that have their names attached to this project. Overall, this album pulls every pop trick in the book, and, as a whole, falls flat.
But to get into why this is, the best place to start is Anne-Marie's vocals, and, I get it, her vocal tone isn't for everyone and how much you like the overstated, blaring vocal tone that she uses a fair amount on this album could be a defining factor as to whether or not you enjoy this album. For me, I mostly enjoy it. At its worse, it's just a bit thin like the breathy falsetto she tries on 'Breathing Fire', although the pre chorus on 'Used To Love You' pushes me to my absolute limit of what I can tolerate; it's quite obnoxious.
Speaking of obnoxious, the production and songwriting across these seventeen tracks are, as I've previously said, a total mess. It all starts off on 'Cry' where the mix feels so cluttered and lacking in depth. Songs like 'Then' and 'Some People' have the opposite problem where the production feels so dour and completely clashes with the tone of the rest of the album. In the former case, that can kind of work in trying to convince that ex to just move on with their life.
A song that this concept does not work with, however, is 'Machine', a song where Anne-Marie confronts the idea of being a machine and how it would be better for her as she would be less affected by the bad things that happen in the world that get broadcasted on the news. Only problem with this is that it completely ignores the fact that that humanity that Anne-Marie speaks about in the song as if it is something holding her back, is what makes life worth living in the first place. 'Perfect' is another example. A song about acknowledging ones imperfections that includes the line 'are you impressed with my honesty?'.
But that isn't even the album at its worse. That would be the relationship songs like the Julia Michaels co-written song 'Trigger'. The relationship is falling apart, but instead of allowing the relationship to meet its natural conclusion, Anne-Marie insists that 'that won't fix it any quicker', and says 'do you really wanna hurt me?'. It somehow gets worse on 'Bad Girlfriend' where she admits to everything she has done wrong in this relationship, but instead of owning her mistakes and improve herself, she so plainly shows no regard for the feelings of the guy in the relationship.
Although, it's not like the guys in the relationships that Anne-Marie sings about are much better. 'Ciao Adios' is the kind of straight forward break up track where she knows the guy is cheating and just removes herself from that situation, a song I mostly like thanks to a strong guitar lead and memorable, sticky hook. Similar case on 'Alarm'. While I'm not the biggest fan of the sandy staccato synth that opens the song, the pre chorus builds some proper intense swell of the deep piano that I really liked.
With that, it's important that I now acknowledge the moments on this album that I really like. 'Can I Get Your Number' is a simply framed song where Anne-Marie is trying go build up the courage to ask to hook up with this guy in amongst the chaos of wounding if it's truly love. It's kind of cliché, but upbeat and catchy production made up of glassy touches and horn like synths can make up for a lot.
I've already talked about how I think the dark intensity of 'Then' really works, but on the opposite end of the spectrum you get '2002', a song about the childhood lifestyle that Anne-Marie lived that could have so easily came across as pandering to her generation, but thanks to Ed Sheeran's sincere co-writing, as well as one of the best pop hooks I've heard all year drive this song into great territory.
But overall, I get there is an audience for this, but between inconsistent songwriting, production, and performances, I would struggle to recommend this to anyone outside of isolated moments. It's a very light 2.5 / 5 from me, and if it wasn't for '2002' bring such a great song, it would have been a lot lower.
Overall Rating: 2.5 / 5
Best Songs: '2002', 'Ciao Adios', 'Can I Get Your Number', 'Then'
Worst Songs: 'Bad Girlfriend', 'Trigger'
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