By now, a certain breakout pop artist has probably caught your ear (or your eye, with her nearly ubiquitous turquoise hair) on Spotify, Tumblr, or your best friendâs record player. When she dropped onto my radar at the tail end of this past summer, I found myself wonderingâŠjust who is this girl, âHalseyâ?
Now, I donât mean âwho is sheâ in a birth certificate, statistical kind of way. Those facts are easily accessible: Ashley Frangipane was born in New Jersey in 1994 to young parents who moved around a lot. Her music alludes to her nomadic, wild child adolescence, which culminated in her discovery and signing with Astralwerks record label in 2014. Her stage name is an anagram of her birth name and the name of a street she lived near as a teenager.
The more interesting and elusive question is: Who is Halsey, the artist? The most concrete way to explain her might be that she excels in her ability to defy explanation. She relishes in the ability to be an artistic oxymoron. The same young girl who gained her initial YouTube fame by writing silly songs about One Direction now sings authoritatively and unapologetically about sex, drugs, and mental illness. Her sound is at once ethereal and dreamy, gritty and angry. Her narrative and her persona are carefully crafted, but never, ever artificial. She manages to be pop, hip-hop, and rocker all in the same breath.
Are you starting to see what makes her musicâs most fascinating newcomer?
She knows how to tell a great storyâŠin a really smart way.
Halseyâs music is fascinating because she deals in concepts. While all her songs are undoubtedly an outpouring of personal emotion, her ability to link them together in a cerebral and self-aware way is what brands her as a true artist.
Halseyâs first EP, Room 93, grew out of a time in her life when she was living in and out of hotel rooms. She contrasts the feeling of isolation with the weird voyeurism of having so many people surrounding you in their own tiny spaces. She also talks candidly about the way her surroundings affected her romantic relationships. âWhen youâre trying to form a relationship with someone in a closed environment like a hotel room, the only thing thatâs really affecting the relationship is the person right in front of you. It kind of strips it down to this bare, vulnerable intimacyâŠâ she told Noisey.com.
Her first full-length album, Badlands, dropped just a couple months ago, and it represents an expansion of Room 93âs themesâŠas well as a more detailed exploration of the landscape of Halseyâs mind. The âBadlandsâ is a fictional, dystopian world of Halseyâs own making, but itâs also symbolic. As she explained in an interview with Rolling Stone, âI was treating the Badlands as a metaphorical state. This booming metropolis, so that’s my brain, surrounded by a wasteland, so nobody can get in and can’t leave, either, keeping people out. And there are toxic elements, but also being kind of proud to be from there.â
The music video for âNew Americanaâ features Halsey as a fierce, leather-clad rebel leader.
Sheâs a 90âs kid.
She cites the great female singer-songwriters of the 90âs (think Alanis Morissette and Jewel) as some of her biggest influences, and also grew up listening to 90âs grunge rock and old-school rap. Her wardrobe is âvery 90âsâ, and she often references classic 90âs teen cinema in her videos.
Sheâs got cool friends.
Halsey kicks it with 5 Seconds of Summer, dates Norwegian rappers, and frequently invites Josh Dun of Twenty One Pilots onstage to drum during her sets. Oh, and sheâs got a collaboration with none other than Justin Bieber slated for release soon.
She identifies herself as âtri-bi.â
Halsey, who has an Italian mother and an African-American father, has always found herself in the complicated position of being a biracial, yet white-passing, woman. She tweets about issues like white privilege and reminds people not to erase her culture because of her complexion. She also identifies as bisexual, and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Both of these themes come up in her music: âNew Americanaâ celebrates the tolerance her generation has towards diverse identities, and she gives us a glimpse into her mental condition with songs like âControlâ.
Undoubtedly, these factors contribute to her resistance to categorization, but they also remind her listeners that not fitting into clear boxes or binaries doesnât make you unapproachable or unrelatable. Sheâs a self-proclaimed âinconvenient woman,â and a âbrutally honestâ one. In my opinion, thatâs the quality that makes her fascinating and subversiveâŠbut also the quality that makes her seem like she could be your best friend too.
Keep inconveniencing us, Halsey. Weâve been loving every second of it so far.
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