About a year ago, Halsey released The Great Impersonator, an album (and album rollout) on which she commented on music-biz image construction, her own legacy, and the medical struggles that almost killed her. It was Halsey’s debut LP on Columbia Records after she split with Capitol in the wake of a dispute over TikTok strategy.
The Great Impersonator was not Halsey's greatest success, commercially speaking. Despite peaking at #2 like most other Halsey albums (the chart-topping Hopeless Fountain Kingdom being the one exception), The Great Impersonator has not been certified platinum or even gold, and only one of its singles even made it onto the Hot 100, the #88-peaking "Lucky." This, she says, has left her in a state of music industry paralysis.
A new Halsey interview with Zane Lowe was published on Apple Music's YouTube channel Thursday, focused on the 10th anniversary of Halsey's debut album Badlands. In the chat, Lowe talks about how he's a dedicated fan who wants to keep following Halsey's music all the way to "album 52." Lowe points out that all careers have ups and downs, even for icons like Neil Young. "You're a career artist, Ashley," he tells her. "If I get to be!" she responds. "Who's stopping you?" Lowe wonders. This leads to a revelation from Halsey: "I can't make an album right now. I can't make an album right now. I'm not allowed to. I can't make an album right now." Lowe interjects, "I don't like the sound of that," which leads to more from Halsey: "It's the reality because The Great Impersonator didn't perform the way they thought it was going to."
She continues from there:
And if I'm being honest with you, the album sold 100,000 fucking copies the first week. That's a lot of copies, especially for an artist who hasn't had a hit in a long time. The tour's the highest selling tour of my entire career. But they want Manic numbers from me. Everyone wants Manic numbers from me. I can't do that every single time. It should be good enough that I do it once in a while. But it's not. It's not. And what would be considered a success for most artists, a success story — 100,000 albums first week, in an era when we don't sell physical music, OK? With no radio hit. Nothing. But it's a failure in the context of the kind of success that I've had previously.
And that's the hardest part, I think, of having been a pop star once. Is because I'm not one anymore, but I'm being compared to numbers and to other people I don't consider lateral to me! You know what I mean? I mean, a couple years ago, yeah, it was me and Ariana quote-unquote fighting for #1 on the Billboard chart. And we weren't fighting. We were texting. We loved it. It was like the best time ever, that era. The "Without Me," "thank u, next," "7 Rings" era, that was amazing. It was an amazing time. But if my record comes out and sells 100,000 copies first week with no radio play, no real support, and the comparison is, "Well why isn't she doing Taylor Swift numbers?" Are you fucking kidding me? I made an experimental concept album about how I almost fucking died. I'm not gonna do those numbers. But I'm doing pretty damn good! Those are strong numbers! I'm still in the top 10 of female artists' first weeks. But it's not good enough because it's not, you know, "the pop star I once was." Even though I'm actively making the choice to not be.
And the problem is that because I have such a dedicated fan base — and I love them, and God bless them, because they are the only reason that I'm able to make anything at all, that I can sell that many copies of an experimental concept album about death. And they support me. The same 100,000 people that bought Badlands first week are gonna buy those records every time I put out an album. Thank fucking God, and God bless them. And put me in a position where if you actually compared me to the other types of artists who are making the type of music that I am making, I'm fucking killing it. But that's not what I'm up against. And because of that, I'm at the bottom of a category that I'm not in anymore, when I should be at the top of a category that I'm in now. And it's hard. It's really hard.
Relatedly, in a tweet Thursday night, Halsey said Columbia, her record label, did not pay for the high-concept photo shoots from the recent album's promo campaign. Watch her impassioned conversation with Lowe below; this material begins about 50:35 mark.
https://twitter.com/halsey/status/1968874443741999444?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
