Singer Nessa Barrett released her third studio album, “Tough Love,” featuring haunting instrumentals about past wistful and troubled romances on Sept. 25. The album features her lead single “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die” that was released two months prior to the album.
Barrett, a former TikTok star-turned-singer and musician, has been making music since 2021 when she released her first EP “pretty poison.” This EP saw much success with its lead single “i hope ur miserable until ur dead” having 189 million streams on Spotify as of Oct. 2026. Her next two albums, “young forever” and “AFTERCARE,” saw similar success with leading singles hitting hundreds of millions of streams. Throughout her musical career, Barrett has seen support from fans of the dark pop genre, but has also been under pressure to grow beyond TikTok stardom and prove herself as a true artist.
Since 2021, Barrett has worked to refine her sound, leaning towards an edgier and more rock inspired instrumental. The production and quality of each song has also become much stronger, especially with this newest album. “Tough Love,” for instance, has strong instrumentals and refined vocals, as well as purposeful and polished music production.
Each song’s instrumental feels inspired and carries the weight of the emotions Barrett is reflecting on from nostalgia to regret. Instrumentals for songs such as “Dracula” and “Coming Home Again” have punchy pacing for power while songs such as “God Gave Me Expensive Taste” and “Candy” have slower tempos for a melancholic effect.
Beyond the tempo, Barrett’s raspy voice carries the heavy emotions of each song. Barrett has mastered her unique raspy tone; the progression of her vocal abilities from her first EP to this current album show her larger vocal range and commitment to her craft.
While it can be difficult to make a song that is cohesive within the whole album but also unique enough to really stand out, Barrett’s does so with “Candy” and “God Gave Me Expensive Taste,” making them both debatably some of the best songs within the album.
Barrett also uses this album as an opportunity to throw several one-liners and snarky remarks to ex-lovers.
“Not all dogs are bred to fight / Baby, you’re all bark, and I’m all bite,” Barrett sings in the song “Tough Love.”
This one liner works with the rest of the song to tease the “tough guy” that isn’t tough enough for Barrett. A lyric within “Candy” works to ridicule old love as she sings, “Silly little me, thinking love was more than sex work,” conveying her resentment toward past unfulfilling relationships.
Each song also has a slightly eerie element that works to emphasize the darkness behind the romance. In “God Gave Me Expensive Taste,” the reverb after words such as “lights,” “camera,” “money” and “diamonds” has a daunting effect, putting a darker spin on the elements Barrett lists in the song.
The album captures the push-and-pull between Barrett’s resentment towards ex-lovers and the euphoria she had from being in those relationships. The snarky one liners highlight the reflective resentment she has, while also showing how the toxicity of each bad romance kept her in the relationship.
“Crawlin’ on my knees / Knockin’ at your door / And I don’t know what for,” Barrett sings in “Dracula.” “You have vampire teeth / And I wanna be yours.”
In “Glamorous,” Barrett continues to sing about toxic love, comparing it to the toxicity of performing for fame. She goes beyond her relationship with ex-lovers and reflects on the harmful relationship she has had with fame, both draining and using her.
Barrett’s live performances have garnered large media attention following her opening act with The Neighbourhood during The Wourld Tour. After she has finished touring with The Neighbourhood, she will begin the Tough Love Tour in Europe, starting Feb. 3 in Dublin, Ireland. American fans can only hope she will add U.S. tour dates to her Tough Love Tour, so fans can hear more than the few songs she plays while opening for The Neighbourhood these next few months.
Kelly Saenz is an Arts & Entertainment Writer. She can be reached at saenzkm@uci.edu.
Edited by Corinna Chin and Geneses Navarro.