Pitchfork: HOLY FVCK

[COOOK 76,406]

"Demi Lovato has long sung about rebirth. On Holy Fvck, she enacts it by jettisoning the pop-R&B palette that has defined her records for a decade."

Spoiler

If you didn’t already know that Demi went back to rehab, she’ll be the first to tell you. “Demi leaves rehab again” is the opening line—delivered with a sardonic bite, like she’s trying to snatch the words away from haters and gossips—of “Skin of My Teeth,” the lead single from her eighth album, Holy Fvck. Sometime after releasing last year’s Dancing With the Devil…The Art of Starting Over, an ultra-exposed document of self-reinvention after self-immolation, Lovato quietly went through another round of treatment. Seemingly, question marks still hover around the matter of their own survival, a central preoccupation of their music: “I’m alive by the skin of my teeth,” goes the refrain.

The sounds Lovato is gravitating to—hurtling, cymbal-heavy drums, rumbling electric guitars, bridge breakdowns—have regained their currency in recent years, as pop-punk has acquired new mainstream acolytes in Machine Gun Kelly, Olivia Rodrigo, and Willow. Lovato positioned this album not just as her pop-punk album but as her homecoming—a return “to my roots,” as she wrote on Instagram. It’s true that her musical interests have long been edgier than her public persona might suggest. As early as 2008, Lovato confessedher fascination with metal to Rolling Stone; during press for Holy Fvck, she recalled crowd-surfing at a performance by the Norwegian black metal band Dimmu Borgir as a young teenager.

Full review here.

Previous scores:

   

[CoolTrainerTerry 1,368]

I personally really enjoyed the album. 

[Bling 31,288]

Fvck Pitchfork. The album slays and Demi's vocals are the best in YEARS 

[monstrosity 3,939]

demi's music is actually really good (at least their last two albums) it sucks that people don't really give them the credit they deserve because of their divisive public persona

[StarstruckIllusion 52,267]

Nah they’re so wrong for this. Holy Fvck is amazing

The fact it’s labeled “RnB” like they’re so unserious 

[XxBones 1,154]

wow I am not generally a Demi fan but even I liked this album. They must not like Demi for that.

[Maxine Puth 9,053]

27 minutes ago, StarstruckIllusion said:

Nah they’re so wrong for this. Holy Fvck is amazing

The fact it’s labeled “RnB” like they’re so unserious 

Nah, the album is literally labeled as pop  it’s just they group them together. ARTPOP is Pop/RNB too 

[LaLuna 12,732]

4 hours ago, Monstruous said:

demi's music is actually really good (at least their last two albums) it sucks that people don't really give them the credit they deserve because of their divisive public persona

I could be wrong but didn't Demi go back to using she/her/hers pronouns?

[Roughhouse Dandy 10,518]

45 minutes ago, LaLuna said:

I could be wrong but didn't Demi go back to using she/her/hers pronouns?

Demi uses either. She said they/them is still a part of the equation, but they also feel comfortable now with she/her.