“Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! Behold the marvel of a century! Witness the uncanny ability of a woman who can become anyone, anything your heart desires. Friend, lover, foe. She transforms before your very eyes, her voice and visage a reflection of your deepest dreams & darkest fears. But beware, for she is not just a master of disguise but a spirit of transformation. Slipping between the cracks of reality. One moment a beloved friend, the next a shadowy nightmare. She is the queen of the uncanny, the mistress of metamorphosis. Beware of the Great impersonator!”
These are the words on Halsey’s official website about her new album. To your average artist, the word “impersonator” would typically be an insult to their creativity, saying that they were a fraud who was really ripping off (and pretending to be) someone else. On her new album The Great Impersonator, Halsey takes the term impersonator in stride, using it to pay homage to her influences. She knows that all art, and life for that matter, is influenced by the world around us, and there is no such thing as pure originality—and that’s one of the most original things about the gut-wrenching, raw, uniquely Halsey, record.
The Great Impersonator is Halsey at her best. It has no skips, only great songs and good songs. From powerful pop-rock numbers to more vulnerable ballads, Halsey lays herself bare, writing about her struggles with lupus, leukemia, and other traumatic aspects of her life. “I don’t know if I could sell out my own funeral,” Halsey sings on the opening track “The Only Girl Living in LA.”
The best track is hands down “Lonely is the Muse,” the Evanescence-inspired rock song. The track explores the difficulties of finding love and genuine connection, with Halsey saying that they are “built from special pieces that [they] learned how to unscrew” and that they can reassemble to be however a person wants them to be. Musically, the track is epic, with Evanescence as a very clear influence. Halsey’s “impersonation” of Amy Lee during the album’s promotion was a show of admiration, a thank you to Lee and the band.
There were a lot of wonderful tracks on the album, my other favorites being “Darwinism” (impersonating David Bowie), “Ego” (impersonating Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries), “Panic Attack” (impersonating Stevie Nicks), “Arsonist” (impersonating Fiona Apple), and “Life of the Spider (Draft)” (impersonating Tori Amos).
While the opening track “The Only Girl Living in LA” is very well-written and well-conceptualized, it is my least favorite, especially the more I think about the album’s concept. Halsey claims to be impersonating Marilyn Monroe here. Unlike the other celebrities Halsey impersonated on the record, Marilyn Monroe was an actress rather than a musician. That being said, Monroe does have iconic music, especially the timeless “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. There are so many iconic things about Marilyn Monroe that Halsey could impersonate. Instead, they focused solely on her tragedy. In a Tweet, Halsey said that Monroe was “The most impersonated woman in history. A woman who eventually had to impersonate herself, day after day; asking the question ‘Want to see me become her?’” While this is not inaccurate, Halsey is honoring and revering all of the other stars. “The Only Girl Living in LA” doesn’t sound anything like Monroe; rather, this “impersonation” is only about her sadness despite her happy, bombshell façade. While the song is good, I don’t like the impersonation angle. Halsey honors the album’s other influences; she only expresses sadness about Monroe’s life without taking any artistic inspiration at all beyond her promotional photos.
Other than that, I love everything about The Great Impersonator. The album has a clear arc and is such a raw exploration of family, love, regret, illness, and trauma. Embracing impersonation is such a unique idea in a scene where everyone is obsessed with at least appearing original, even if they aren’t being original. Halsey has made a truly original album by virtue of reveling in impersonation.