After a decade in the music industry, Halsey has released a metaphorical, musical eulogy. The singer’s latest project, The Great Impersonator, explores many of her most pivotal life events, the evolution of her career, and her path forward. Following her typical concept album structure, this collection of songs seemingly time travels between definitive eras in music, visiting icons and influences from each era.
Jumping in time on each track from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s, pop music’s favorite anti-hero assumes many personalities. The genre-bending and emotional whiplash of the album structure takes listeners on a journey through her life. Halsey stated that while making the album, she was convinced it would be her last. The final result is a bear-all sideshow of soft-sung lullabies and haunting dark rock placed side-by-side.
“Haven’t you heard?”
Halsey does not hold back from addressing the rumors and vulnerable details of her personal life. Sampling Britney Spears’ 2000 single, “Lucky,” Halsey impersonates the general public criticizing her. “I heard it’s from the drugs she ate / A girl like that as a mother must be tough” are just a few of the ways she mockingly claps back at her perception. Breaking the fourth wall and engaging with the discourse, Halsey is partaking in the cultural discourse of how audiences engage with celebrities.
On a deeper glance, the single rollout began with the release of “The End” in early June. Following the announcement and release of the single, Halsey took to social media to open up about her diagnosis and struggles with her health. “In 2022, I was first diagnosed with Lupus SLE and then a rare T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder,” she details in a vulnerable Instagram post. Shedding more light on her imperfect life behind the glitz and glam of being a celebrity, Halsey is partaking in a larger debate around the parasocial relationship of fans and their idols.
The Impersonator of Music Influences
The marketing strategy for The Great Impersonator used photoshoots and teasers of each track on the album. In the photoshoots, Halsey uses lighting, wardrobe, makeup and poses to replicate photos of icons from previous decades. These impersonations have included Dolly Parton, Cher, Aliyah, Joni Mitchel, Kate Bush, and even herself… a decade ago.
This is both an impressive and inventive marketing strategy to showcase the various influences on her new album. Accompanying each promotional photo re-creation with a teaser of a track from her album in a series of Instagram posts, fans have gotten a glimpse at the various genres to be expected.
Over the years, Halsey has dipped their toes into the waters of pop, country, and alternative rock on her previous record If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power. The genre-blending master has remained consistent in keeping audiences guessing what’s next in showcasing their versatility.
“The End”? Or a New Beginning?
“Lonely is the Muse” laments Halsey on the 12th track of the album, opening the album’s final act. This self-deprecating mantra has rang true through every Halsey era, bringing uncertainty as to whether her musical narrative will ever truly find freedom, acceptance, or love. However, following the song “I am not a woman, I’m a God” from the predecessor album, it seems this idea of empowerment and independence takes a different form for our hopelessly outcasted loner.
But the melodramatic masochist that is Halsey has shifted focus from what exactly is ailing her. From her earliest works that document dramatic tales of romance doomed from the beginning, it seems the artist has had a change in priorities. The most notable moments on the album are revealed through the album’s opening track, the three Letters to God, and the albums closing act.
“I’m nothing but legs they used to say / I’m nothing but skin and bones these days”
On Life of the Spider (Draft), the fourteenth track of the album, Halsey laments the change from being sexualized and used by lovers to being discarded in the weakened and vulnerable state of her illness.
“Does a Story Die with its Narrator?”
The confessional rambling on the album’s opener, “Only Living Girl in LA”, invites listeners into Halsey’s scattered mental landscape. Within the first verse, she contemplates life after she has passed and the continuing mocking she has received while alive.
After her diagnosis with Lupus and the reflection of her mortality, it seems Halsey has turned her undeserving lovers into a reflection of her past self and is now fighting to be alive and present for her son.
- “I don’t think I could sell out my own funeral” – Only Living Girl in LA, Track One
- “‘Please, God, I wanna be sick / But I don’t wanna hurt so get it over with quick / Please, God, I wanna be loved / I don’t wanna be somebody that they wanna get rid of’” – Letter to God (1974), Track Four
- “‘Please, God, I don’t wanna be sick / And I don’t wanna hurt so get it over with quick / Please, God, I wanna be loved / I don’t wanna be somebody you’re tryna get rid of‘” – Letter to God (1983), Track Eight
- “I stay at home all my my lonesome with my little baby boy / I don’t ever want to leave him but I don’t think it’s my choice” – Letter to God (1998), Track Seventeen
- “Please, God, oh you’ve gotta be sick / Why do you make it hurt and why’s it over so quick? / Please, God, I’m finally loved / I finally found somebody I don’t want to get rid of” – Letter to God (1983), Track Eight
Through the various tone shifts in the album, Halsey’s reflection of love and her mortality shift.
Halsey’s Legacy: Love, Power, and Morality
- “They said I have a universal blood type / I can give to anyone in need / But only recieve from someone exactly like me” – Dog Years, Track Three
- “Did you know the father’s DNA stays inside the mother for seven years? / Have you ever waited seven years?” – Arsonist, Track Thirteen
- “And in a few years I will leave, but I’ll perpetually believe / That any man who says he loves me is hiding something up his sleeve” – Hurt Feelings, Track Fifteen
- “I thought that it was my fault, and now / Sometimes I still do / You didn’t chase me through the park / So now I’m chasing after you” – Hurt Feelings, Track Fifteen
Halsey began her career with an emphasis of love gone wrong, but here our neglected narrator reclaims this narrative. Suddenly, after all the years of blaming herself, she hits back and harder than before on Dog Years and Arsonist. Most interesting is how she is following the story told in her previous album.
Her tone has grown from lost on Badlands, hopeless on hopeless fountain kingdom, curious on Manic, reflective and vengeful on If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, and now here. We see Halsey may finally be ready to accept her faults, see the larger scope of her life in all her joys and sorrows, and fight for the love she has found.
