Anne-Marie - Unhealthy album review: enjoyably ranty

Though peppered with hints of delicious rage, this is still very much a radio-friendly pop album
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David Smyth28 July 2023

“Being sad is so last year/I’m over it,” Anne-Marie Nicholson sings early on her third album. In fact it is two years since the Essex singer released Therapy, a collection exploring the difficult mental health journey that has led to her becoming an ambassador for the charity Mind. This time around she’s by no means claiming everything is perfect, but any ill feelings are turned outwards as delicious rage in a way that makes for an enjoyably ranty half hour.

Unhealthy is unvarnished, with the usually perfectly turned-out performer standing with her nose smooshed against a shower door on the cover. It’s also very short, with only You & I, a duet with American balladeer Khalid, going a bit past the three-minute mark across 13 tracks. The shouty song titles, all written in capitals, read like they should be made of glued-together letters cut out of a tabloid newspaper, tied to a brick and hurled through a window: “SUCKS TO BE YOU,” “SAD B!TCH,”, “PSYCHO,” “HAUNT YOU,” “TRAINWRECK,” “GRUDGE,” and so on. This time she’s less Live Laugh Love, more Scream Stamp Smash.

Grudge, with its Latin horns and thick bassline, shows her choosing to be angry even when she doesn’t have to be: “I shouldn’t hold a grudge, but I wanna,” she smirks, building up to relish an unrestrained roar at the close.

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Inevitably, it’s a feckless ex who’s responsible for much of her frustration. Psycho, a top five hit late last year, works as another perspective on Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5, listing women by name who the guest rapper Aitch, who plays the sneaky eight-timer, claims not to desire: “All these other girls that I can’t see/I just want a little Anne-Marie.”

Country-pop mega-seller Shania Twain is the other, more surprising, star cameo, adding her voice to the title track, which sits close to the Frankenstein mix of folk and EDM that used to do well for Avicii.

Though the pop-punk electric guitar of Haunt You suggests she could turn her anger into volume, this is still very much a radio-friendly pop album. We could do without Obsessed lifting its melody from Oliver! but Cuckoo in particular sticks in the brain as if made of Velcro, warning a prospective lover about her issues in the catchiest terms: “I OD on the jealousy/Got a PhD in anxiety.” She still has her problems, but coming up with potential hit singles isn’t one of them.

Major Tom’s/Asylum

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