Nessa Barrett - tough love (2026)
Nessa Barrett – Tough Love — 64/100
Tough Love works mainly because it has a clear atmosphere and because Nessa Barrett commits completely to it. The whole album sits in that space between dark pop, pop rock, dreamier alt-pop and a slightly gothic, decadent aesthetic. It is polished, compact and easy to listen to, and there are enough guitars, organs and darker textures to stop it from feeling completely generic.
What I like is that the album has a real identity from beginning to end. Even when the songs are not especially strong, they belong to the same world. There is a visual and sonic consistency here that makes the album feel more complete than a simple collection of singles. And at around 34 minutes, it never really has time to become annoying or repetitive.
“Bad Girls Never Die” is my favourite track. It has more attitude and more immediate personality than most of the album. The hook works, the darker pop-rock energy is stronger, and it feels less passive than some of the more atmospheric songs. It is probably the moment where Barrett sounds most comfortable inside the image she is building instead of simply borrowing from it.
“Dracula” is another good one because it pushes the gothic side further, while “Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die” probably has one of the more solid melodic structures on the album. There are definitely several tracks I would keep.
The main issue is still the songwriting. I like the sound of Tough Love more than I like a lot of the actual songs. Some of them are attractive while they are playing, but there are not enough melodies or hooks that really stay with me afterwards. The lyrics also spend a lot of time around dangerous romance, bad-girl imagery, sex, death and self-destruction, and after a while the themes start feeling more like part of the aesthetic than something genuinely revealing.
The Lana Del Rey influence is also difficult to ignore. Sometimes it is just part of the vocabulary, which is fine, but other moments feel close enough that Barrett's own personality becomes less obvious. That is probably the biggest reason I would not put this higher.
So 64 feels right. It is a good, coherent and well-produced dark-pop album, and I like the overall mood. But I am not convinced there are enough really strong songs underneath the styling to make it more than that.
64/100
❤️ Favourite track: “Bad Girls Never Die”
Then “Dracula” and “Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die”
+ Strong and coherent dark-pop aesthetic
+ “Bad Girls Never Die” has real attitude and one of the best hooks on the album
+ Compact running time and very little obvious filler
– The songwriting is less distinctive than the production
– Lana Del Rey's influence is sometimes too visible
– Several songs work in the moment but leave relatively little behind afterwards
Genre: Alt Pop
Country: US
Final Verdict: 64% (Good Album)
Yearly Ranking: 401th / 716
Highlight: Bad Girls Never Die
Made me think of:
Lana Del Rey
Miley Cyrus
Maggie Lindemann
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#AltPop #NessaBarrett #US
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