High art from overdose hell
THE BIG RELEASE
DEMI LOVATO DANCING WITH THE DEVIL... THE ART OF STARTING OVER Republic ★★★★★ Frankness ★★★✩✩ Music
AS THE two-part title suggests, Demi Lovato’s sprawling, 19-track record has a narrative arc. In 2018, the pop singer nearly died from an opioid overdose, during which she was also assaulted by her drug dealer. The recovery process has yielded a candid YouTube documentary as well as this kind-of-soundtrack accompaniment.
By any measure, the emotional thump of Dancing
With The Devil… The Art Of Starting Over is hard. The plain speak Lovato employs is uncharted territory for a pop star.
On the title track she reminisces about the glass pipe she used for smoking crack cocaine, while the syncopated Melon Cake was named after the fruit
‘cake’ her former manager concocted for her birthday so Lovato would stay thin. And there’s ICU, a piano ballad that relives the shock of not being able to see her sister because the overdose left her temporarily blind.
On the more upbeat second half, the ‘hella queer’ singer chirrups, ‘I don’t care if you got a d***, I don’t care if you got a WAP’ – one of the breeziest thoughts on an album freighted with tribulation.
Perhaps the toughest moment of all is Met Him Last Night, a high-octane sad duet with fellow trauma survivor Ariana Grande.
As a document of fame’s effect on a susceptible individual, Dancing With The Devil… is unparalleled. As a pop album, less so. Lovato’s titanic belting is applied to a cluster of genres – EDM, pop, emo, R&B – but its need for memorable choruses is unmet, and the songs pass without bedding into the memory. It’s one for the Lovatics.