Island Records / UMG Recordings
Release Date: September 15th 2023
Reviewed by: Jonathan Andre
Demi Lovato – Revamped (Amazon mp3/iTunes)
Track Listing:
- Heart Attack
- Confident
- Sorry, Not Sorry
- Cool For the Summer
- Tell Me You Love Me
- Neon Lights
- Skyscraper
- La La Land
- Give Your Heart A Break
- Don’t Forget
Demi Lovato has been in the music industry for quite some time, releasing her debut album in 2008 at the mere age of…16? 17? Whatever the case, she’s been in and around music for a looonnng time, and because of that, she’s been in the spotlight for as long as maybe she can remember. With the spotlights comes all sorts of pressure, and she’s had her fair share over the years. Just look at the ‘sexuality, gender and relationships’ and the ‘mental health and substance abuse’ sections on Wikipedia and you can know and tell that she’s been through the ringer more often than your average music artist that has come up through the Disney platform (well…maybe Demi rivals Miley Cyrus in terms of who’s life has been a trainwreck because of Disney and the pressure to perform and be a certain way from such a young age). Nevertheless, Demi has kept going, kept plugging through. While I myself don’t necessarily agree with the direction that her music is going in (I personally am not a fan of HOLY FVCK, nor do I have any inkling to listen to ‘Swine’, a proud pro-abortion song), I still have to congratulate her tenacity, perseverance, and willingness to keep going, in the midst of all the difficulties and challenges she has faced in her life thus far. And so on the back of her most controversial song she’s ever recorded thus far (the backlash for ‘Swine’ has been the most she’s ever received in her whole career thus far), Demi’s since unveiled something new-ish to give to fans before her next album releases, whenever that may be. And that is…REVAMPED, a 10-track album full of re-recordings of her fan favourite songs over the years, all with a heavy rock slant.
Now this album ‘review’ of sorts will indeed be short and brief, and you can read all things Demi Lovato in a post we as a site undertook a short time ago, when we wrote about her music and her impact on this generation of now, and the generation into the future. While REVAMPED isn’t necessarily a ‘new’ album per se, the album does showcase Demi’s rock influence in her music- in a sense where maybe, just maybe, these rock versions of songs like ‘Confident’, ‘La La Land’, ‘Tell Me You Love Me’, ‘Sorry Not Sorry’ and ‘Heart Attack’ (to name a few), should’ve been the real versions of these songs, all along. Usually when you start music so young (and by the way of Disney as well), you tend to create music that is very much radio (and family) friendly. Nothing wrong with that, but more often than not, there’s not really much room for experimentation and exploration of music genres outside of the ‘radio pop’, ‘Disney genre’, or even something like a ‘bubblegum pop’ that a lot of music stars who started very young, were encouraged to make. When Demi started to become older, she experimented more and more musically, until she shed her ‘Disney image’ completely with her release of her albums Dancing With The Devil…The Art of Starting Over and HOLY FVCK. While the trajectory of where she’s heading (lyrically in her music) isn’t necessarily one that I myself want to go on (as a fan) with her; what REVAMPED has done right is create a 10-track ‘throwback’ album of sorts- 10 rock versions of songs from Demi’s back catalogue.
‘Heart Attack’, ‘Don’t Forget’, ‘Give Your Heart A Break’, ‘Skyscraper’ and ‘Neon Lights’ are all Demi classics, and while I may have wanted a 12 or 13 track album, with rock version of other songs like ‘Warrior’, ‘Here We Go Again’, ‘Father’, ‘Remember December’, or ‘Anyone’; these 10 songs do enough for me to enjoy Demi’s album, in a way that maybe she intended us to enjoy her music all along. Does it mean that I will be listening to Demi’s music, going forward? Probably not, if the song ‘Swine’, and every song on HOLY FVCK is any indication. But just because you don’t like someone’s musical trajectory, doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy their previous music before that particular point in their career where they diverged musically. Here’s hoping and praying that Demi writes more redemptive, uplifting and encouraging music, compared to the angsty songs she’s undertaken of late. And regardless of whether her music will change direction thematically in the future or not, one thing is for certain- her impact and influence, especially her music pre-Dancing With the Devil, is one for the history books. REVAMPED is certainly evidence of this very fact.
3 songs to listen to: Heart Attack, Tell Me You Love Me, Skyscraper
Score: 4.5/5
RIYL: Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez, Hanson, Miley Cyrus