Unhealthy (2023)

Unhealthy is the third studio album by English singer-songwriter Anne-Marie. It was released on 28 July 2023, through Major Tom's, Asylum Records, and Atlantic Records. The album, a pop and dance-pop record, was produced by Mojam, who previously produced Anne-Marie's second studio album, Therapy (2023), Billen Ted, an opening act on Anne-Marie's Dysfunctional Tour for Therapy, siblings Connor and Riley McDonough, and Evan Blair. The album features guest appearances from American singer Khalid, British rapper Aitch, and Canadian singer Shania Twain, with reissues of the album featuring Thai singer Minnie from South Korean girl group (G)I-dle, French DJ David Guetta, and American rapper Coi Leray.

Unhealthy was preceded by three singles. The first, "Psycho" (featuring Aitch), was released on the 15th of September, 2022. It would chart at number 8 on the Irish Singles Chart, number 5 on the UK singles chart, and a peak at the top of the Sweden Heatseeker chart. It was also certified Platinum in the UK. The second single, "Sad Bitch", was released on the 3rd of February, 2023, and charted at number 65 on the UK singles chart. The title track and third and final single, "Unhealthy" (featuring Shania Twain), was released on the 18th of May, 2023. It would chart at number 18 on the UK singles chart and number 10 on the Irish Singles chart, whilst peaking within the top 10 in seven other countries, including a position at the top of the Rádio – Top 100 in Slovakia.

Unhealthy peaked at number 2 on the UK Albums Chart and became her best selling album to date in her homeland. The album also saw continued success in other charts including peaking at number 1 on the Scottish albums chart and at number 11 on the Irish albums chart, respectively. The album was also certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). To promote the album, Anne-Marie went on The Unhealthy Club Tour from 2023 to 2024, which included a leg of "Unhealthy Intimate Performances" in 2023.

Background

Anne-Marie started working on her third studio album in 2022. While promoting her single "Psycho" with Aitch in September 2022 she revealed that she's been writing a lot of new stuff and figured out what she wants to say. The singer finished working on the album in January 2023. The record was written at four writing camps, including Decoy Studios in Suffolk. A total of 19 songs were written in a week, including pop, rock, country and musical songs. On 27 April 2023, Anne-Marie announced the title, release date, artwork and tracklist of her third album. On the same day, the singer met fans at Brick Lane in London, where she revealed billboards advertising "Unhealthy", which she later graffitied with black paint.

Production

On the Table Manners podcast, hosted by Jessie and Lennie Ware, Anne-Marie provided information about her third studio album. She explained that after the release of her second album and having weekly therapy sessions during lockdown, she began to feel numb to emotions. Because of this, she stopped talking to her therapist so often and as a result she started feeling completely different. This change inspired her third album:

"When I started therapy in lockdown, that's when I started writing the second album, so it was all very much about self improvement, you know, figuring out my brain and all those techniques my therapist was telling me. I felt like I went into therapy because I was quite numb to emotions and then I came out of therapy numb to emotions in another way. I just learned so much on how to understand everything and deal with things that I just didn't feel extreme anger, extreme sadness or extreme happiness anymore. I was back on the middle road. And I kinda missed those extremities again so I stopped therapy, I do it every now and again, but it was like a weekly thing for years. (...) So the second album was very much like that, you know, calm and collected. So in the process of this new album I just wanted to feel everything again."

She later added: "I basically have done a journey of two relationships: one which I came out of which wasn't great and then one which I've gone into which didn't start great because it was like an obsessiveness, unhealthiness and then at the end it kind of levels out. So it's like all of the phases of a relationship that you could imagine is put into the album."