If you wish to experience the full hideousness of Now, of our current age, condensed into one awful hour, then you should invest in this bucket of infected expectorant streaked with blood. It’s all there. The depthless self-absorption and introspection, the me me me. The self-aggrandizing, the wallowing in victimhood, the complete lack of personal responsibility for her very bad decisions in life, the lack of discernible talent, the mawkishness, the stupidity, the facile political ‘awareness’. This is Demi Lovato, recent subject of an emetic four-part documentary on ‘her life’. Of course she is bulimic and bipolar. Of course she nearly died of a skag (fentanyl) overdose and was a cokehead for years — none of it her fault. She had, like, real ishoos. Of course she spaffs her earnings on donations to trendy pressure groups. Demi Lovato is what America has become, and we’re well on the way.
The music is lachrymose R&B slush pop drivel and bombast. ‘Nobody’s listening to me,’ she whinges endlessly on the opener. I am, love — because I’m being paid to. Anyone else who bothers needs their head examining. The tunes recall kindergarten. The lyrics a counseling session convened by an imbecile. Sometimes, entertainingly, the words are indecipherable: ‘It’s just a little egg white on my spine,’ she seems to caterwaul on the title track. The actual words are probably far more boring: Demi makes Taylor Swift resemble Dostoevsky. Elsewhere, this album has been called ‘a triumph’. Yay.
Grade: Z
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.
