Eternal Sunshine Redux: Madison Beer’s Locket

In the three years since Madison Beer released her last studio album, Silence Between Songs, it isn’t as if she’s left her listeners totally bereft of new releases. For there was “make you mine” and “15 Minutes,” both released in 2024 (the former of which even made the cut for her new album). And each of those singles now retroactively feels like a bridge, so to speak, to the eventual “contents” of Locket, which marks her third record since her debut, Life Support, came out in 2021.

Commencing with “locket theme” (so it isn’t quite a “title track”), Beer establishes that Locket isn’t an ordinary breakup record in the sense that it will mix emotions repeatedly rather than clinging to just one (whereas most breakup records choose anger or sadness as a motif and then tend to stick with it throughout—something that even Lily Allen’s beloved breakup album, West End Girl, couldn’t avoid). Because on the one hand, she’s bitter; on the other, sweet (needless to say, a nod to “Bittersweet”). That blend of conflicting emotions is immediately present on “locket theme,” with Beer admitting, “I know I missed you, I’m not gonna lie ‘bout that.” However, within the span of the one-minute-twenty-nine-second opening, Beer comes to terms with the often hard-won revelation that, “Everything that I could ever need is within me.” In other words, what she needs can’t be found in someone else who is mostly making her unhappy. As for the locket metaphor, Beer is sure to lay it on thick, singing, “All our memories safe in my locket/I carry it” before finally arriving at the realization, “Pain on a necklace/Set it down, I’m weightless.”

And, although someone of Beer’s age isn’t exactly accustomed to the “old-timey” nature of wearing a locket with a picture inside of it that’s actually—gasp!—tangible (in lieu of the digital images that certain generations prefer to scroll through on their phone), Beer was sure to explain part of the reasoning behind her focus on that image/totem (and one that is very “Lana-core” [in truth, it’s a bit of a surprise that Del Rey never released a song either called “Locket” or a song that at least mentions one]) for the album, stating in a press release, “After writing the album, it feels like each song lives within this metaphorical locket for safekeeping.”

Not only that, but a locket is an emblem of love. More to the point, wanting to hold on to and remember a certain love (whether romantic or familial). But there are many moments on Locket when Beer is perfectly willing to let go of a relationship that she can now see was only bogging her down. A sense of levity from releasing it being quite apparent on “yes baby” (in desperate need of a mash-up with “yes, and?”), which is in sharp contrast to the dreamy, gauzy sound of “locket theme” (co-produced by Beer and Leroy Clampitt). An introduction that then gives way to the more club- and gym-ready anthem that is “yes baby.” Assisting Beer and Clampitt on the tonal shift of the sound are Lucy Healey and Lostboy, both of whom clearly bring a high energy to the repetition of the chorus, “Yes, baby, yes, yes, baby, yes, yes/Baby, yes, baby, yes, yes, baby, yes, yes.” There’s even a hint of Britney Spears’ lyrical stylings from “Work Bitch” when Beer urges, “So put the work in, cut your teeth/Don’t you want to hear me say/It’s the least you could do for me.” The slowed-down effect of the final repeated “yeses” at the end of the song even bear a tinge of the Britney/Justin sound circa the early 00s (particularly noticeable at the end of the latter’s “Cry Me a River”). But it’s strictly a 90s R&B sound on the track that follows, “angel wings” (which Beer probably should have included in her set list when she performed at the 2025 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show).

More specifically, the backbeat to “angel wings” has a very similar vibe to Janet Jackson’s 1993 single, “Any Time, Any Place” (which is perhaps now best recognized as being part of Kendrick Lamar’s 2013 single, “Poetic Justice”). However, as usual for Beer, it’s Ariana Grande’s influence, both vocally and lyrically, that’s all over this song. And one could easily imagine such lyrics as, “I hate you, can’t kiss you/If I do, might miss you/So I’ll bury you down inside/In my head you lie so peacefully inside” appearing somewhere on Eternal Sunshine. In addition to Grande likening her relationship demise to a death. Or, more to the point, acting as if that ex is dead—in a manner that’s intentionally sardonic and humorous—in order to secure her own emotional self-preservation. As Beer does when she explains, “I dress all in black, it’s easier to act/Like you aren’t here than to ignore, ignore you/Dead to me/How else do I answer when they check on me?/When I talk about you, I say, ‘Rest in peace.’” And, although the frequent use of the phrase “dead to me” makes it seem as if the song should be called as such, there’s something far less played about the title “angel wings.” Not to mention the fact that it’s a tongue-in-cheek way to allude to the fact that Beer wishes her ex actually was an angel (instead of a devilish turd), adding, “It’s easier pretending you have angel wings.” Both in the sense of pretending he’s dead and pretending he was a good person to her while they were together.

The moody musical comedown of “angel wings” transitions into the more light-hearted, jazzy-sounding “for the night.” This marking Beer’s switch from emulating Grande’s vocal stylings to Billie Eilish’s. To be sure, “for the night” sounds like something from Eilish’s Happier Than Ever, with its soft, sultry vocals and “throwback” slow jam sound. Deviating from the initial tone of the album, “for the night” comes across as if it’s from a part of the timeline in a relationship that could either be at the beginning or the end. Because both phases apply to Beer conceding, “Headache, laying [never mind that the correct use of it in this case is ‘lying’] on the floor in a bad way/For my sake, you should probably drive out to my place/You should probably cancel your plans/You should come as fast as you can.” Such sentiments apply to the beginning of a relationship in that Beer is simultaneously cautious and eager in summoning her lover, and horny in the type of way most commonly associated with a new romance. And yet, that form of lustiness also exists at the end of a relationship, as if the body can’t help but cater to an inherent sense of “last hurrah”-ness. Even so, it’s when Beer says, “I don’t wanna be like this forever/Maybe you could put me back together/Baby, if you loved me, I’d feel better” that she evokes a sense of speaking to someone relatively new in her life. Someone she still sees as being a kind of “salvation” to her since she ostensibly hasn’t yet had the epiphany described during “locket theme”: “Everything that I could ever need is within me.”

The strength of that mantra disappears again on “bad enough,” one of Beer’s most candid, personal and honest songs to date (which is why it was a bold move to make it the album’s fourth single). Acknowledging her “serial dating” tendencies (again, à la Ariana Grande), Beer tells her listener about thirty seconds in, “And if you take a look at my past/I don’t know how to be alone” (neither does Maggie Carpenter [Julia Roberts] in Runaway Bride). That much is certainly true if one heeds her suggestion to take a look at her past and see that, since 2017, she’s been in relationships of some varietal or another (whether one wants to count the Brooklyn Beckham rumors or not). Her longest being the one with “social media personality” Nick Austin, which was on-again, off-again starting from 2020. Indeed, it could very well be Austin who inspired such “bad enough” lyrics as, “My friends all say my standards are too low/But it’s not bad enough to let my baby go” and “I know he’ll never leave me/My friends say things I already know/But it’s not bad enough to let my baby/Go, go, go, go.”

It’s during the bridge that Beer’s vocal delivery gets especially emotional, singing, “I wish I didn’t have to say it/I wish I didn’t have to complicate it/I’d walk away and I would be okay/I’m sorry that I let you kiss me/I’m sorry that I dragged you down with me.” Even though, going by the rest of the lyrics (not to mention the accompanying video), it’s clearly the dude in this relationship that’s dragged her down. She just doesn’t have the heart or the will (or, for that matter, the self-respect) to end it. This not exactly being a “healthy habit.” Which, though that song title might suggest it, isn’t about healthy habits at all. Something that Beer lets the listener know in about ten seconds when she says, “It’s not a healthy habit/But I can spare a few/Like smoking in the kitchen and romanticizing you.”

So it is that Beer is back to her Grande ways (think: “make up” and “twilight zone”) as she considers whether or not maybe breaking up was such a good idea. A thought that harkens back to her declaring in the previous track that things weren’t “bad enough” to do so. Thus, in Carrie Bradshaw form, she “can’t help but wonder” “if it’s worth doing it again.” The relationship, that is. And even though she insists, “It’s not desperation/Harmless inspiration,” she also knows, “It’s not a healthy habit/Like kissing random boys and pretending they’re you.” Something Beer probably did a few times during one of her “off-again” periods with Austin. Along with thinking, “Sometimes I tell myself you were the best/Sometimes I forget why I ever left” (though it would probably only take a few days of being back together to remember why).

Such musings lead naturally into the lush ballad that is “you’re still everything.” Getting straight to the point, Beer remains as confessional as ever in the opening verse, “They say you’ll get used to it/But it never goes away/If I, I get through this/I’ll never be the same/It’s hard to explain, like colors and pain.” Even so, Beer does a pretty bang-up job—and this in no small part thanks to her co-writers and co-producers, Clampitt and Healey, who also comprised the “dream team” on the previous three tracks (with Jasper Harris also getting added into the mix on “healthy habit”). Perhaps it was this duo that helped make Beer feel comfortable enough to ask the hard question of her ex, “How am I nothing to you?” It’s the kind of demand that echoes Lily Allen’s “Beg For Me” lyrics, “You’re so indifferent and that’s insane/Where’s all your empathy for, for all my pain?” Obviously, nowhere to be found as Beer concludes, “I tried to save us, but there’s only so much I can do/And I’m not perfect, but I’d never stop loving you/How am I nothing to you while you’re still everything/To me?”

Having come to terms with the shittiness of her ex/the relationship the most she ever has on “bittersweet,” Beer works toward reconciling the notion that “both things can be true”: 1) she misses her ex and 2) she knows she’s better off without him. This much is made apparent in her affecting chorus, “Now that it’s over, you’ll blame it all on me/I know I should be bitter, but baby/Right now I’m bittersweet/I’m getting over what you put me through/And I’d say I’m done crying, but baby/I don’t lie like you do.” Thus, “bittersweet” just might take the cake for Beer sounding at her most Grande-esque, both vocally and lyrically. There isn’t much “complexity” to that assessment, but it’s true. Just as it’s true that “complexity” also has its Grande overtones, including Beer talking about her “baggage.” Something Grande, too, mentions on “ghostin” when she says, “I’m a girl with a whole lot of baggage/But I love you, we’ll get past this.” Beer, however, isn’t so sure about getting past anything when she asks of her lover/soon-to-be ex, “How can I expect you to love me when you don’t even love yourself?” Or, as RuPaul prefers to phrase it, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” In this regard, it turns out that the solution is nothing but “simplicity”: Beer needs to end it and move on.

As for the trance-y, up-tempo rhythm of “complexity,” it makes the track arguably the most danceable on the album apart from “yes baby” and “make you mine,” which is the song that follows. Here, the pendulum swings back once more toward the side of Beer’s emotions that favor lust and yearning. Whether or not that’s for her ex or someone new who has replaced him, Beer is determined to “feel the rush” and “taste the crush.” Whoever the object of her desire is, his purpose, as far as Beer is concerned, seems to be to serve as a pleasant distraction. And one that’s fun to toy with, to boot. Ergo, such sensual pronouncements as, “I wanna get you going/I wanna lay you down, I wanna string you out/I wanna make you mine.”

“Switching positions” (to borrow an Ariana parlance), the final song on Locket, “nothing at all,” is another emotionally vulnerable offering that reminds the listener of Beer’s combined heartache and PTSD from a previous relationship. The kind that makes her question whether she should trust things feeling “okay” or even “good” in a new one (and, at the moment, her latest relationship is with Justin Herbert, the quarterback of the L.A. Chargers [how “Swift-esque”]). Her reasoning? “I’m afraid of getting better/I’m afraid it gets too good/‘Cause it can’t last forever/Even though I wish it could/The higher that you rise, the further that you fall [or, as Charli and Ari put it on the “Sympathy is a knife” remix, “It’s a knife when you’re finally on top/‘Cause logically, the next step is they wanna see you fall to the bottom”]/And soon you’re left with nothing at all.”

Whether she’s referring to a relationship or just being “fine” with herself alone, it’s exactly the kind of thing that Larry Gray (Clive Owen) in 2004’s Closer speaks on when Dan Woolf (Jude Law) tells him, “If you love her, you’ll let her go, so she can be happy.” Larry returns, “She doesn’t want to be happy.” Dan insists, “Everybody wants to be happy.” Larry counters, “Depressives don’t. They want to be unhappy to confirm they’re depressed. If they were happy, they couldn’t be depressed anymore. They’d have to go out into the world and live, which can be depressing.”

Even so, Beer sounds determined to do just that throughout Locket—no matter how excruciating it might be. Especially after just healing from some fresh pain. Much the same as Ariana Grande on Eternal Sunshine (and Eternal Sunshine Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead). But, as Beer has patently observed, Ari has made plenty of profit from that pain…which could be why Beer is the best working impersonator of Grande in the business—and that’s a big compliment.