Madison Beer’s ‘locket’ Navigates Love, Heartbreak, and Longing With Unflinching Honesty: Album Review
- Mikaila Storrs
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Stand-out tracks: "locket theme" "make you mine"
Our favorites: "angel wings" "healthy habit" "bittersweet"
Release date: January 16, 2026
Label: Epic Records
For fans of: Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish
Madison Beer keeps her memories and wounds tucked safely away, until she decides to open the locket. In doing so, she invites us into her most private world, a quiet unraveling of the fears, loves, and losses she has carried close for so long. locket reads like the pages of a diary left open on the floor, tracing anxious attachment, heartbreak, the rush of falling in love, and the fragile moments in between that shape who we become. Each song loosens another clasp, revealing the stories we inherit from the people we love and the emotional weight we carry along the way.
We are first ushered into Madison’s world through the ethereal glow of “locket theme,” a gentle introduction that captures how love lingers long after it is gone. It introduces a relationship preserved like a keepsake, memories held quietly inside even after the ending has already been written. Without pause, the album shifts into “yes baby,” a bold surge of confidence and desire. It captures the intoxicating rush of being adored, of falling into a connection where power and attraction blur. With lines like “Basically a God, you pray to me,” Madison revels in the thrill of being wanted, seen, needed, and placed on a pedestal, even if only for a fleeting moment.
On “angel wings,” heartbreak becomes survival. The pain of the ending is so overwhelming that she chooses to grieve as if the person is already gone. Pretending they are dead becomes easier than facing the depth of their hurt, captured in the lyric, “Thought you and I might've had everything / It's easier pretending you have angel wings.” The album presses further into the ache of longing with “for the night,” where Madison clings to fleeting affection, using someone else’s desire as a temporary balm for sadness and loneliness. “bad enough” follows with painful self-awareness—she knows the relationship is hurting her, yet it is not broken enough to walk away, leaving her suspended between comfort and consequence. On “healthy habit,” she navigates the dangerous pull of romanticizing a love that is already over, clinging to memories and excuses until a raw voice note shatters the illusion: “You don’t remember anything, do you,” snapping herself back to reality.
“you’re still everything” stands as one of the album’s most devastating moments, capturing a heartbreak so consuming that escape feels easier than staying awake. She gave everything she had, and still the relationship fell apart, leaving her to exist only in fleeting moments of connection: “I only exist in the moments you’re talking to me / If we can’t be together, then I’ll just go back to sleep.” In contrast, “bittersweet” arrives wrapped in bright production and movement, transforming pain into something you can dance through. There is relief in the ending, a readiness to move forward, yet it is tinged with the quiet ache of letting go of a love once believed to last forever.
The unraveling continues with “complexity,” a moment of reckoning. The song delves into the emotional weight of loving someone who struggles to love themselves, capturing the frustration of giving your heart to someone incapable of doing the same. Madison reflects on how their words and jokes made her question herself, only to realize that true love cannot exist where self-love does not.
The album pulses into its final chapter with the club-ready energy of “make you mine,” a dizzying dive into obsession and desire, the all-consuming rush of falling for someone new, where every thought and heartbeat revolves around them. It then drifts into the introspective close of “nothing at all,” where Madison inhabits the uneasy space between happiness and sorrow. There is a fear in truly fixing herself, a hesitation to reach for more, because the higher you climb, the harder the fall. She lingers in the in-between, not miserable, but not fully free, holding onto the fragile comfort of simply existing.
locket plunges into the deepest corners of Madison’s world, where cycles of longing and heartbreak play out like a quiet, relentless storm. She chases validation, opens herself to love, only to be hurt again, and yet there is honesty in her tension, a sense that perhaps she does not fully want to fix these patterns because they have become part of who she is. The album offers listeners a rare, unguarded glimpse into her humanity: the fears, the flaws, and the fragile beauty of vulnerability. It is an invitation to witness someone fully alive, imperfect, and unflinchingly real, an intimate journey through the emotions we all carry, even those we try to hide.
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