History Music / Halsey

Halsey played several instruments in her youth including the violin, viola, cello and guitar, and as she is biracial, having a white mother and black father[[note]]she is of African-American, Hungarian, Irish and Italian ancestry in total[[/note]], she credited her parents' contrasting music tastes (Music/{{Nirvana}}, Music/{{Creed}}, Music/AlanisMorissette, etc. from her mom; Music/TheNotoriousBIG, [[Music/TupacShakur 2Pac]], Music/BoneThugsNHarmony, etc. from her dad) with the diverse influences she takes for her work.

Ashley Nicolette Frangipane[[note]]pronounced "FRAN-jih-PAW-nee", like the flower[[/note]] (born September 29, 1994), better known by her stage name Halsey (both an anagram of her first name and derived from Halsey Street in Brooklyn, where she spent much of her teen years) is an American singer-songwriter. Her sound has been generally classified as electropop, alternative pop, and/or R&B, and is notable for its consistent [[ConceptAlbum conceptual]] overtones.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* RearrangeTheSong: For the soundtrack to ''Film/TheHuntsmanWintersWar,'' "Castle" was given a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adScYCXzuLg new, more cinematic arrangement.]]

Halsey played several instruments in her youth including the violin, viola, cello and guitar, and as she is biracial to a white mother and black father[[note]]she is of African-American, Hungarian, Irish and Italian ancestry in total[[/note]], she credited her parents' contrasting music tastes (Music/{{Nirvana}}, Music/{{Creed}}, Music/AlanisMorissette, etc. from her mom; Music/TheNotoriousBIG, [[Music/TupacShakur 2Pac]], Music/BoneThugsNHarmony, etc. from her dad) with the diverse influences she takes for her work.

* Her verse on "Die For Me" by Music/PostMalone and {{Music/Future}} is pretty much this as well, with lines like "Sold 15 million copies of a breakup note," "I don't play anymore, I went through your phone/ And called the girls in your [=DMs=] and took all them home," and "Grew into a savage, and that's why they gave this verse to me."

Frangipane played several instruments in her youth including the violin, viola, cello and guitar, and as she is biracial to a white mother and black father[[note]]she is of African-American, Hungarian, Irish and Italian ancestry in total[[/note]], she credited her parents' contrasting music tastes (Music/{{Nirvana}}, Music/{{Creed}}, Music/AlanisMorissette, etc. from her mom; Music/TheNotoriousBIG, [[Music/TupacShakur 2Pac]], Music/BoneThugsNHarmony, etc. from her dad) with the diverse influences she takes for her work.

Although Halsey began gathering an online following through her music and content in 2012 (predominantly through Website/{{Tumblr}}), it was her 2014 single "Ghost" that would become her first breakout hit, generating massive buzz after being uploaded to [=SoundCloud=]. Among the several record labels that immediately came knocking, she ultimately signed with Astralwerks as she felt they gave her the most creative control. She co-headlined with Young Rising Sons in 2015, and then performed as an opening act for Music/ImagineDragons and Music/TheWeeknd. Her rapid rise to success led her to a solo tour in September 2015. In 2016, she collaborated with Music/TheChainsmokers on their song "Closer", which became a huge #1 hit almost immediately after it was released.

In March 2021, Halsey announced she uses they/them along with she/her pronouns. Halsey is currently in a relationship with Turkish-American screenwriter Alev Aydin. They have a son together, Ender, born July 2021.

* Myth/{{Lilith}}: Halsey sings about the titular figure in the track "Lilith".

-->''I'm a wanderess, I'm a one-night stand
-->Don't belong to no city, don't belong to no man
-->I'm the violence in the pouring rain-I'm a hurricane.''

--> ''Do you call yourself a [[PrecisionFStrike fuckin']] hurricane like me?''

--> ''I'm bigger than my body, I'm colder than this home
-->I'm meaner than my demons, I'm bigger than these bones
-->And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me
-->I can't help this awful energy
-->God damn right, you should be scared of me.''

-->''We feared no city and we feared no man.''

--> "And when you start to look at me, a physical fatality
--> And you surrender to the heat, you'll know
--> I can put on a show, I can put on a show"
* Her verse on "Die For Me" by Music/PostMalone and {{Music/Future}} is pretty much this as well with lines like "sold 15 million copys of a break up note", "I don't play anymore, I went through your phone And called the girls in your [=DMs=] and took all them home" and "Grew into a savage and that's why they gave this verse to me"..

--->Someone will love you, but someone isn't me.

** "You Should Be Sad" is one of the "I'm so glad you're gone" variety, even saying, "I'm so glad I never, ever had a baby with you!"
* BrickJoke:: In the spoken word opening to "929," Halsey talks with her producer, and claims she was born at 9:29 on 9/29. He says he wants to see the birth certificate... [[spoiler:and at the end of the song, we hear Halsey talking again. Turns out, she checked her birth certificate, and she was born at 9:26.]]
-->[[spoiler:Man, I'm a fucking liar.]]
* CallBack: In "929", she recalls losing her lover to a drug addiction. In the 2017 track “Bad At Love,” Halsey sings of a blue-eyed woman whom she loved, but lost due to cocaine use.

* ConceptAlbum: All of them. ''BADLANDS'' is about a Vegas-gothic metaphor for her negative mental state. ''hopeless fountain kingdom'' is a play on Romeo and Juliet. ''Manic'' is about her struggles with bipolar disorder. ''If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power'' is about the positives and negatives of pregnancy and childbirth. Even ''Room 93'' is themed around the strange, pocket-universe feel of hotel rooms.
* TheCoverChangesTheGender: "Eastside" is a duet between Halsey and Khalid, with Khalid singing the first verse and Halsey the second. Halsey performed the song solo on ''Saturday Night Live'', singing both verses and implicitly changing the relationship referenced in the first verse from a heterosexual to a lesbian one.
* CoverChangesTheMeaning: Her rendition of "[[Music/JohnnyCash I Walk the Line]]", altering a country song about being faithful in a relationship to an unsettling alternative tune implying the speaker is stuck with a particular lover, even addicted to them.

--->Breakfast is cold, as cold as our bed.

--->''Had a girl with California eyes and I thought that she could really be the one this time, but I never got the chance to make her mine, because she fell in love with little thin white lines.''
* DestructiveRomance: "Without Me" and "Graveyard" details of an unhealthy relationship between the protagonist and her lover. Luckily, she realizes what a bad place she's in and how irreparable the relationship with said toxic person is and breaks it off to start looking after herself.

* DrugsAreBad: Halsey sings about a past lover's addiction in "Bad At Love" and uses clever metaphors to hide what exact substance it was.
--->''But I never got the chance to make her mine, because she fell in love with little thin white lines''.
* DyeOrDie: In "Now Or Never" Luna has to change her appearance so her attackers won't find her. So she chops off her long blue hair and dyes it blonde.

* GetBackInTheCloset: Speaks about the phenomenon [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnpyCq3OLcU here]] after getting significant backlash from [[MoralGuardians Moral Guardians]] over her redo of the "Ghost" video, which featured a romance between her and her female co-star.

--->''Out alone in San Tropez, lookin' as fine as a damn Monet''
--->''Tryna hydrate, no Perrier; everybody thirsty, drinks on me''
* HeelRealization: In "Graveyard" followed with a {{GASP}}.
--->''It's funny how the warning signs can feel like they're butterflies...'' ''(GASP)''.

-->''I don't like 'em innocent, I don't want no face-fresh'' \\
''Want them wearing leather, begging "Let me be your taste-test''.

-->''Someone will love you \\
But someone isn't me''

-->When you start to feel the rush, the crimson headache, aching blush and you surrender to the touch, you'll know
-->''I can put on a show, I can put on a show. Don't you see what you're finding? This is [[TitleDrop heaven in hiding.]] I'm heaven in hiding.''

-->''Infatuation's observation with a cause.''\\
''But none of it is love, so while I'm waiting for it,''\\
''I'll hate everybody!''

* PrecisionFStrike: In "Young God":
--> ''If you wanna go to Heaven, you should fuck me tonight.''

--> ''Just to pour that motherfucker down the drain like me?'' \\

* SexForSolace: "Strangers" is about a rebound romance she had while trying to get over a long-term boyfriend. Ironically, the lyrics make it clear that both girls feel more for the other than ''just'' this, but neither will admit it because they believe the other doesn't care.
-->''We're not lovers, we're just strangers with the same damn hunger to be touched, to be loved, to feel anything at all''
** On the same album, "I find myself alone at night, unless I'm having sex" from "100 Letters".

** In "Killing Boys", she quotes the iconic movie line ''"[[Film/JennifersBody You're killing people! No, I'm killing boys]]."''

** In Alanis' Interlude, Halsey spins on John Mayer’s October 2002 hit “Your Body Is A Wonderland”, altering an iconic “straight” love song into an ode to her bisexuality with the lyrics "your pussy is a wonderland".
** "Ashley" ends with a sample from ''Film/EternalSunshineOfTheSpotlessMind'', with some dialogue from Creator/KateWinslet's character, Clementine... which is also the name of the next song on the album.

-->''You were red, and you liked me because I was blue. You touched me, and suddenly I was a lilac sky, and you decided purple just wasn't for you''.

--> '''Halsey''': I really was born at 9:29 AM on 9/29. You think I'm lying, but I'm, I'm being dead serious (I gotta see this birth certificate). Okay, I'll prove it.

* StacysMom: The music video for Halsey's "Colors" centers around Halsey's character getting along with Tyler Posey's character and his parents and its seems everything is fine. Until the reveal shows that [[spoiler: she's actually in love with Posey's father which he discovers through her Polaroids and he reacts in disgust.]]

->I paced around for hours on empty\\

I turned all the mirrors around
* WhamShot: When Halsey performed the song "Without Me" on Saturday Night Live, a banner appeared behind her spell out like a letter "''Dear Ashley...I'm sorry...I cheated.''" in alludes to her on-off relationship with musician/rapper Music/GEazy. Also quite Tearjerking.

Ashley Nicolette Frangipane[[note]]pronounced "FRAN-jih-PAW-nee", like the flower[[/note]] (born September 29, 1994), better known by her stage name Halsey -- both an anagram of her first name and derived from Halsey Street in Brooklyn, where she spent much of her teen years -- is an American singer-songwriter[[note]]of African-American, Hungarian, Irish and Italian ancestry[[/note]]. Her sound has been generally classified as electropop, alternative pop, and/or R&B, and is notable for its consistent [[ConceptAlbum conceptual]] overtones.

Frangipane played several instruments in her youth including the violin, viola, cello and guitar, and as she is biracial to a white mother and black father, she credited her parents' contrasting music tastes (Music/{{Nirvana}}, Music/{{Creed}}, Music/AlanisMorissette, etc. from her mom; Music/TheNotoriousBIG, [[Music/TupacShakur 2Pac]], Music/BoneThugsNHarmony, etc. from her dad) with the diverse influences she takes for her work.

+ Music/TheCure, Music/AlanisMorissette, {{Music/Nirvana}}, Music/TheNotoriousBIG, Music/TupacShakur, Music/TaylorSwift, Music/MarilynManson, Music/NineInchNails, {{Music/Beck}}, Music/DavidBowie, Music/AmyWinehouse, Music/JimiHendrix, Music/BobDylan, Music/Blink182, Music/TheCranberries, Music/PanicAtTheDisco, Music/LadyGaga, Music/ChristinaAguilera, Music/TheWeeknd

+ Music/TheCure, Music/AlanisMorissette, {{Music/Nirvana}}, Music/TheNotoriousBIG, Music/TupacShakur, Music/TaylorSwift, Music/MarilynManson, Music/NineInchNails, {{Music/Beck}}, Music/DavidBowie, Music/AmyWinehouse, Music/JimiHendrix, Music/BobDylan, Music/TheCranberries, Music/PanicAtTheDisco, Music/LadyGaga, Music/ChristinaAguilera, Music/TheWeeknd

+ Music/TheCure, Music/AlanisMorrissette, {{Music/Nirvana}}, Music/TheNotoriousBIG, Music/TupacShakur, Music/TaylorSwift, Music/MarilynManson, Music/NineInchNails, {{Music/Beck}}, Music/DavidBowie, Music/AmyWinehouse, Music/JimiHendrix, Music/BobDylan, Music/TheCranberries, Music/PanicAtTheDisco, Music/LadyGaga, Music/ChristinaAguilera, Music/TheWeeknd

Ashley Nicolette Frangipane[[note]]pronounced "FRAN-jih-PAW-nee", like the flower[[/note]] (born September 29, 1994), better known by her stage name Halsey[[note]]both an anagram of her first name and derived from Halsey Street in Brooklyn, where she spent much of her teen years[[/note]], is an American singer-songwriter. She is of African-American, Hungarian, Irish and Italian ancestry. Her sound has been generally classified as electropop, alternative pop, and/or R&B, and is notable for its consistent [[ConceptAlbum conceptual]] overtones.

Music was a prominent part of Frangipane's youth. She played several instruments including the violin, viola, cello and guitar, and as she is biracial to a white mother and black father, she credited her parents' contrasting music tastes (Music/{{Nirvana}}, Music/{{Creed}}, Music/AlanisMorissette, etc. from her mom; Music/TheNotoriousBIG, [[Music/TupacShakur 2Pac]], Music/BoneThugsNHarmony, etc. from her dad) with the diverse influences she takes for her work.

Although Halsey began posting music and content online and gathering a following in 2012 (predominantly through Website/{{Tumblr}}), it was her 2014 single "Ghost" that would become her first breakout hit, generating massive buzz after being uploaded to [=SoundCloud=] and leading to her taking meetings with five record labels the following day, with a male friend of hers posing as her manager. She ultimately signed with Astralwerks as she felt they gave her the most creative control. Around this time, her website summarized her music as "songs about [[IntercourseWithYou sex]] and being sad".

After the release of her debut EP ''Room 93'', Halsey quickly gained a young fanbase through her candid attitude and online presence, liberal sociopolitical views, and raw, provocative lyrical style. She co-headlined with Young Rising Sons in 2015, and then played as an opening act for Music/ImagineDragons' Smoke + Mirrors tour. Her rapid rise to success led her to a solo tour in September 2015. In 2016, she collaborated with Music/TheChainsmokers on their song "Closer", which became a huge #1 hit almost immediately after it was released.

She is openly bisexual, and has dated women in the past. In March 2021 Halsey announced she uses they/them along with she/her pronouns. Halsey is currently in a relationship with Turkish-American screenwriter Alev Aydin. They have a son together, Ender, born July 2021.

Ashley Nicolette Frangipane[[note]]pronounced "FRAN-jih-PAW-nee", like the flower[[/note]] (born September 29, 1994), better known by her stage name Halsey[[note]]both an anagram of her first name and derived from Halsey Street in Brooklyn, where she spent much of her teen years[[/note]], is an American singer-songwriter. Her sound has been generally classified as electropop, alternative pop, and/or R&B, and is notable for its consistent [[ConceptAlbum conceptual]] overtones.

* Her verse on "Die For Me" by Music/PostMalone and {{Music/Future}} is pretty much this as well with lines like "sold 15 million copys of a break up note", "I don't play anymore, I went through your phone And called the girls in your DMs and took all them home" and "Grew into a savage and that's why they gave this verse to me"..

* [[Myth/{{Lilith]]: Halsey sings about the titular figure off the track "Lilith".

* AmbiguouslyBrown: Though she doesn't really look it at all, she's mixed race (Caucasian mother, African-American father). In late 2018 she spent a few months growing her hair out (when long, it's the most visible indicator of her ethnicity) and was promptly accused of cultural appropriation by people who didn't know she's half-black.

* MohsScaleOfLyricalHardness: Averages around a 7.
* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: Rarely higher than a 3, though there are exceptions, like "Nightmare" which jumps up to a 5.

* SchoolgirlLesbians: Alluded to in the track "Alanis' Interlude". Singing out how she and another female classmate must hook up in private while attending high school together.

** The music video for "Ghost" distinctly resembles ''Film/LostInTranslation'', from the setting to the bob wig the singer wears throughout most of the video.

Music was a prominent part of Frangipane's youth. She played several instruments including the violin, viola, cello and guitar, and as she is biracial to a white mother and black father, she credited her parents' contrasting music tastes (Music/{{Nirvana}}, Music/{{Creed}}, Music/AlanisMorissette, etc. from her mom; Music/TheNotoriousBIG, Music/2Pac, Music/BoneThugsNHarmony, etc. from her dad) with the diverse influences she takes for her work.

Although Halsey began posting music and content online and gathering a following in 2012 (predominantly through Website/{{Tumblr}}), it was her 2014 single "Ghost" that would become her first breakout hit, generating massive buzz after being uploaded to [=SoundCloud=] and leading to her taking meetings with five record labels the following day, with a male friend of hers posing as her manager. She ultimately signed with Astralwerks as she felt they gave her the most creative control. Around this time, her website summarized her music as "[[IntercourseWithYou songs about sex]] and being sad".

After the release of her debut EP ''Room 93'', Halsey quickly gained a young set of fans through her candid attitude and online presence, liberal sociopolitical views, and raw, provocative lyrical style. She co-headlined with Young Rising Sons in 2015, and then played as an opening act for Music/ImagineDragons' Smoke + Mirrors tour. Her rapid rise to success led her to a solo tour in September 2015. In 2016, she collaborated with Music/TheChainsmokers on their song "Closer", which became a huge #1 hit almost immediately after it was released.

* WhamShot: When Halsey performed the song "Without Me" on Saturday Night Live, a banner appeared behind her spell out like a letter "''Dear Ashley...I'm sorry...I cheated.''" in alludes to her on-off relationship with musician/rapper G-Eazy. Also quite Tearjerking.

** In Alanis' Interlude, Halsey spins on John Mayer’s October 2002 hit “Your Body Is A Wonderland”, altering an iconic “straight” love song into an ode to her bisexuality with the lyrics "your p***y is a wonderland".

Music was a prominent part of Frangipane's youth. She played several instruments including the violin, viola, cello and guitar, and as she is biracial to a white mother and black father, she credited her parents' contrasting music tastes (Music/{{Nirvana}}, Music/{{Creed}}, Music/AlanisMorrissette, etc. from her mom; Music/TheNotoriousBIG, Music/2Pac, Music/BoneThugsNHarmony, etc. from her dad) with the diverse influences she takes for her work.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/halsey.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"You were red, and you liked me 'cause I was blue..."'']]

Ashley Nicolette Frangipane (born September 29, 1994), better-known by her stage name Halsey, is an American singer/songwriter specializing in alt-pop. Astralwerks signed her based on the strength of the single she posted on Soundcloud, "Ghost", [[SignatureSong which would go on to be one of her most popular songs]]. She sings "[[IntercourseWithYou songs about sex]] and being sad". After the release of her EP, Halsey quickly gained a young set of fans through her candid attitude, her liberal sociopolitical views, and her raw, provocative, often profane lyrical style.

She co-headlined with Young Rising Sons in 2015, and then played as an opening act for Music/ImagineDragons' Smoke + Mirrors tour. Her rapid rise to success led her to a solo tour in September 2015. In 2016, she collaborated with Music/TheChainsmokers on their song "Closer", which became a huge #1 hit almost immediately after it was released.


!!Discography