Halsey

Halsey was frustrated when critics mistook their defining single, “New Americana,” from 2015 debut BADLANDS, as an aspirational anthem rather than the intended satire of American pop culture. But this LA-by-way-of-New Jersey songwriter (born Ashley Nicolette Frangipane in 1994) has always mingled cynicism with awe. And in the wake of Lorde and Lana Del Rey, Halsey helped shift the outcasts and rebels towards pop’s center. Even as they’ve progressed to Billboard highs and Grammy nods, Halsey continues to straddle that uneasy divide. One minute, they’re working with lotharios like The Weeknd and The Chainsmokers; the next, they’re rewriting Romeo and Juliet as a bisexual epic on 2017’s hopeless fountain kingdom and using their platform to elevate the issues that touched them as a younger person. Halsey committed even further to memoir-level self-reflection on 2020’s Manic, bolstered by a dream cast of collaborators ranging from Alanis Morissette to producers like Greg Kurstin and Benny Blanco. Still, that didn’t quite foretell the dark and especially personal turn they would take with 2021’s tellingly titled If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. Produced with cinematic undertones by in-demand film scorers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, that fourth album drew inspiration directly from the transformative journey of pregnancy and motherhood—and even featured Halsey recreating a classical image of the Madonna with a baby tucked under one arm. “It happened by accident,” Halsey told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe of the album’s tumultuous themes. “I wasn’t trying to make a political record, or a record that was drowning in its own profundity—I was just writing about how I feel. And I happen to be experiencing something that is very nuanced and very complicated.” By cataloging some of the more anxious moments of parenthood, Halsey detailed certain corners of a common experience that don’t often find their way into mainstream pop music. And in the process, they once again created a new American standard for a generation of fans who see themselves in the pop star’s mold-defying image.