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Music / Halsey

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/halsey_2019_01_please_credit_aidan_cullen_4.jpeg
Influenced by:

"I will never be anything but honest."

Ashley Nicolette Frangipanenote  (born September 29, 1994), better known by her stage name Halseynote , is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Her sound has been generally classified as electropop, alternative pop, and/or R&B, and she is noted for her distinct singing voice, her raw and provocative lyrics, and the consistent conceptual overtones of her music.

Halsey played several instruments in her youthnote , and as she is biracial, having a white mother and black fathernote , she credited her parents' contrasting music tastes (Nirvana, Creed, Alanis Morissette, etc. from her mom; The Notorious B.I.G., 2Pac, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, etc. from her dad) with the diverse influences she takes for her work.

She began gathering an online following through her music in 2012 (predominantly through Tumblr), and two years later released her breakout hit "Ghost" to SoundCloud. Among the several record labels that came knocking, she signed with Astralwerks as she felt they gave her the most creative control. Her rapid rise to success began with the release of her debut EP Room 93 on the label, after which she co-headlined with Young Rising Sons and performed as an opening act for Imagine Dragons and The Weeknd. Around the same time, she worked on her debut album Badlands, which was released in August 2015; she embarked on her first solo tour, in support of the album, the following month. In 2016, she collaborated with The Chainsmokers on their song "Closer", which became a #1 hit almost immediately after it was released.

All of her albums thus far have debuted in the top 2 of the Billboard 200. Her second album, 2017's hopeless fountain kingdom, was her first #1 debut on the chart and generated her first top-five single on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Bad at Love"; after the album's release, she was moved from Astralwerks to its parent company Capitol Records. Her third album, 2020's MANIC, became the first album released in the year to be certified Platinum by the RIAA, and achieved her biggest opening week to date (239,000 sales) as well her most commercially successful single in "Without Me", which became her second #1 hit (and first as a solo artist) and was eventually certified Diamond. Her fourth album, 2021's If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, departed from her previous work for a dark industrial-influenced sound; it was fittingly produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails, whom she had long been a fan of. This album would be her last for Capitol, as she parted ways with the label in 2023.

Halsey has reportedly sold nearly 17 million album units worldwide and received over 31 billion streams. She is known for her candid attitude and online presence, liberal sociopolitical views, and advocacy for causes such as LGBT rightsnote , reproductive rights and mental health awarenessnote .

In March 2021, Halsey announced she uses they/them along with she/her pronouns. In July 2021, her first child with Turkish-American screenwriter Alev Aydin, a son named Ender, was born; the two later separated at an unknown date.

Discography:

  • Room 93 (EP) (2014)
  • BADLANDS (2015)
  • hopeless fountain kingdom (2017)
  • MANIC (2020)
  • If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power (2021)

Filmography:

Film

Television

Her work provides examples of the following tropes:

  • Album Closure: MANIC finishes with "929," a simple autobiographical track where Halsey honestly addresses where she is in life and her various feelings about it.
  • Alone in a Crowd: "Alone" echoes this, along with feelings of inadequacy that come with being people's idol.
    Everywhere I go, I got a million different people tryna kick it, but I'm still alone in my mind
  • Alter-Ego Acting: A minor case. Her stage persona is simply a condensed, dramatized version of her.
    "So what I think I explain is that Halsey is an anagram for Ashley, so if you rearrange Ashley, you get Halsey, and I think the difference is more than spelling. It's like, if you rearrange me a little you get Halsey. It's not so much an alter ego as it is an amplified version of me. Ashley's like, 'What kind of fucking cereal do I like in the morning?' Ashley is "did I remember to call my mom today?" Ashley is if I lose my mail key.[...] When I'm sitting here, talking about what fucking shoes I like, or what makeup I wear, that's Ashley. Halsey is a protagonist."
  • And I Must Scream: Implied in "Gasoline".
    You can't wake up! This is not a dream! You're part of a machine and you're not a human being!
  • And Then John Was a Zombie: The end of "Lighthouse". The narrator sings that she'll always have a piece of the devil who stranded her in the water inside of her, and embraces her new desire to lure in other people like she was lured.
    And I'm glad I met the devil cause he showed me I was weak
    And a little piece of him is in a little piece of me.
  • Badass Boast:
    • "Hurricane".
      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 fuckin' hurricane like me?
    • Used again in "Control":
      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.
    • The "Hurricane" example comes back in the Spoken Word narration beginning the "New Americana" video.
      We feared no city and we feared no man.
    • Used in "Heaven in Hiding":
      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 Post Malone and 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."
  • Break-Up Song:
    • "Ghost" is about a relationship in which one partner is no longer emotionally invested.
    • "Sorry" is a I Want My Beloved to Be Happy-type version sung by someone apologizing to a lover they treated badly as they're leaving.
      Someone will love you, but someone isn't me.
    • "killing boys" is about an unfaithful ex-boyfriend.
    • "You Should Be Sad" is one of the "I'm so glad you're gone" variety.
      I'm so glad I never, ever had a baby with you!
  • Brick Joke: In the spoken-word opening to "929," Halsey talks with her producer and claims she was actually born at 9:29 AM on 9/29. He expresses disbelief and says he wants to see her birth certificate. 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.
    Man, I'm a fucking liar.
  • Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: "Be Kind" is about this type of relationship, with Halsey reassuring her lover that she will be there for them.
    "I know you're chokin' on your fears,
    Already told you I'm right here,
    I will stay by your side every night."
  • Call-Back: In "929", Halsey 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.
    Halsey: Lost the love of my life to an ivory powder.
  • Catholic School Girls Rule: A downplayed example in her "Colors" music video.
  • Cluster F-Bomb:
    • "Strange Love" features ten uses in just over four minutes, emphasized by Halsey's forceful delivery of the song.
    • "Don't play" manages to fit five uses in just the chorus alone.
  • Concept Album: All of her major releases.
    • Room 93, her debut EP, is themed around the strange, pocket-universe feel of hotel rooms.
    • BADLANDS is about a Vegas-gothic metaphor for her negative mental state.
    • hopeless fountain kingdom is a play on Romeo and Juliet, taking specific influence from Baz Luhrmann's interpretation.
    • 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.
  • The Cover Changes the Gender: "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 one to a lesbian one.
  • The Cover Changes the Meaning: Her rendition of "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.
  • Crapsack World: The titular "Badlands" in her debut album. She describes the place as an urban-sprawl dystopia, representative of a negative mental state.
  • Dead Sparks: "Lie".
    Breakfast is cold, as cold as our bed.
  • Descent into Addiction: Not her, but a former lover mentioned in "Bad At Love":
    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.
  • Destructive Romance: "Without Me" and "Graveyard" detail 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.
  • Domestic Abuse: Her character in "If I Can't Have Love I Want Power", Queen Lila, is treated very badly by the king, her husband, to the point that she ends up poisoning him to escape.
  • Dominatrix: In the music video for "Nightmare", one of her outfits is a latex fetish costume.
  • Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: In "Alone", Luna returns to the Hopeless Fountain Kingdom to find Solis at a party but is heartbroken and confused to find that he has already found a new lover, with long blue hair similar to Luna previous to her transformation.
  • Dye or Die: 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.
  • Fading into the Next Song: The song "Drive" fades and then continues into the next song "Coming Down".
  • Fanservice Extra: "If I Can't Have Love I Want Power" features her character's handmaidens undressing to bathe her, with them showing full frontal nudity. All of them are attractive young women-most don't appear in other scenes.
  • Get Back in the Closet: She spoke about the phenomenon from firsthand experience after releasing two music videos for her song "Ghost". The first contained her in a physically intimate relationship with a man, and was barely described by the press as anything beyond a "love story". The second contained a romance with relatively less intimacy shown, but replaced Halsey's co-lead with a woman. This video was far more controversial and was even described by some as pornographic; Halsey attributed this to the particular connotation same-sex female relationships have when portrayed in media.
  • Gratuitous Japanese: The Spoken Word opening to the "Ghost" video, roughly translating to "As I look back at the past together with her, suddenly she starts to disappear. Maybe she never really existed."
  • Hard-Drinking Party Girl: "Luna", the protagonist of hopeless fountain kingdom.
    Out alone in San Tropez, lookin' as fine as a damn Monet
    Tryna hydrate, no Perrier; everybody thirsty, drinks on me
  • Heel Realization: In "Graveyard", followed with a Gasp!.
    It's funny how the warning signs can feel like they're butterflies...
  • Hell-Bent for Leather: Referenced in "Ghost".
    I don't like 'em innocent, I don't want no face-fresh
    Want them wearing leather, begging, "Let me be your taste-test."
  • Heroic Seductress: The narrator in "Hurricane".
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: "Sorry" is a particularly bleak instance of this trope and possibly the bleakest thing Halsey committed to tape; the song is an apology for how she can't make her significant other (or anyone) happy, because her mental struggles and insecurities always get in the way.
    Someone will love you,
    But someone isn't me.
  • Intercourse with You: To be expected, as a lot of her songs are about sex.
    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 heaven in hiding.
    I'm heaven in hiding.
  • In Love with Love: The narrator of "I HATE EVERYBODY."
    Infatuation's observation with a cause.
    But none of it is love, so while I'm waiting for it,
    I'll hate everybody!
  • Important Haircut: At the end of the "Now or Never" video. She chops off her long blue locks into a shirt blonde spiked haircut.
  • Lady Swears-a-Lot: Barely a song of hers is devoid of profanity, with a Precision F-Strike occurring very frequently.
  • La Résistance: The "New Americana" video features her leading one.
    They made me their leader when I never asked to be. The lightning in their eyes molded me into whatever they needed me to become. We were hopeful we would win, because nothing could scare us.
  • Lecherous Licking: From the smirk she's wearing at the end of this clip, she knows what she's doing.
  • Likes Older Men: One of the plot twists in the music video for Halsey's "Colors".
  • Lilith:
    • Halsey sings about the titular figure in the track "Lilith".
    • Her character in "If I Can't Have Love I Want Power" is titled this along with Queen Lila, which appears to represent her rebellious side as she defies social conventions.
  • Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: The subject of "Bad at Love," which describes several failed relationships with unsuitable people.
  • Madonna-Whore Complex: "If I Can't Have Love I Want Power" explores this idea, since it was inspired from traditional depictions of the original Madonna, Mary mother of Jesus, who's usually portrayed as non-sexual (the Virgin, after all), with her character struggling against this expectation as it's indicated that she wants to remain a sexual being while becoming a mother, but the royal court is scandalized by this. It's also implied much of their opposition may come from her strongly implied attraction to her handmaidens.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: According to Word of God, the main theme of MANIC is that she's found herself falling into this role in her real life relationships, and wants somebody who won't expect her to constantly entertain them and disrupt their lives.
  • Melismatic Vocals: "Everything is blu-uuu-uuuuu-uu-e".
  • Ms. Fanservice: In "If I Can't Have Love I Want Power" she isn't shy at all in portraying herself sexually, which includes her wearing very low-cut gowns along with showing full frontal nudity on multiple occasions (once while heavily pregnant), since its themes explore the Madonna-Whore Complex and her character is rebelling against convention that as a mother she has to be non-sexual. The uncensored version of the album's cover also features her with one breast exposed while she's cradling her baby (this however harkens back to the painting featuring Mary with Jesus which inspired the story).
  • Oblivious to Love: In "Strangers", both narrators feel more for the other than just a friends-with-benefits type of relationship, but neither realizes her feelings are shared.
  • Precision F-Strike:
    • In "Young God":
      If you wanna go to Heaven, you should fuck me tonight.
    • Twice in "Gasoline":
      Just to pour that motherfucker down the drain like me?
      Do you call yourself a fuckin' hurricane like me?
  • Protest Song:
    • "New Americana" is about, in her words, a "generation unafraid of diversity".
    • And "Castle", the first song on her debut album, addresses her irritation with the Double Standard expectations living in a patriarchal social mandates.
  • Rearrange the Song:
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
    • "Without Me" is one of these directed at someone that Halsey helped who then ditched her for fame and glory at the first opportunity they got, reminding them Halsey is the one who "put [them] up there" and asking if they're lonely pretending that they can live without her.
    • "You Should Be Sad" is directed at an unnamed ex-lover, calling him faithless, manipulative, and incapable of selflessly loving another, which is why she's glad that she chose not to have a baby with him and dumped him instead.
    • "I'm Not Mad" is a song directed at an ex for how they mistreated Halsey all the while wishing them false positive messages.
  • Revenge Ballad: "Castle", is, according to Word of God, about Revenge Against Men.
    I'm headed straight for the castle
    They wanna make me their queen
    And there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying
    That I prob'ly shouldn't be so mean
  • Sanity Slippage Song: Given that her debut album focused on a fictional city meant to represent her former negative headspace, it's not surprising that it features a couple of these, most notably "Control".
  • Screw Yourself: Not in a literal sense, but the girl she's making out with in the "Ghost" video is intentionally made up to look like her-same clothes, same hair, similar proportions, to emphasize the confusion of what she represents.
  • Secretly Gay Activity: Alluded to in "Alanis' Interlude" where Halsey and another maintain relations in secret:
    Eatin' my dessert in the bathroom.
  • Secret Relationship: In "Bad at Love."
    London girl with an attitude
    We never told no one but we looked so cute.
    • Deconstructed in that the relationship didn't work out, and Halsey has stated in an interview that the secrecy was what led to it falling apart.
  • Sequel Song: "Colors, Pt. II".
  • Sex for Solace:
    • "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, "100 Letters" contains the line "I find myself alone at night, unless I'm having sex."
  • Shout-Out:
  • Significant Anagram: Her stage name is her real given name with a couple of letters switched around.
  • Sour Outside, Sad Inside: The narrator of "I HATE EVERYBODY" admits to using a cynical attitude to mask her loneliness and desire for love.
    If I could make you love me,
    maybe you could make me love me.
    And if I can't make you love me,
    then I'll just hate everybody.
  • Spoken Word in Music:
    • The fan-favorite lyric in "Colors":
      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      .
    • Hopeless Fountain Kingdom's first track, The Prologue, has Halsey speaking the entirety of Shakespeare's Prologue for Romeo and Juliet.
    • In "929", she reveals in the spoken monologue of the song that the song is titled after her birthday.
      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.
    • "Good Mourning" has Halsey's little brother, Dante, speaking the entire intro.
  • Stacy's Mom: 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 she's actually in love with Posey's father, which he discovers through her Polaroids and reacts to with disgust.
  • Two-Person Pool Party: In the "Ghost" video.
  • Vice City: "Those are the Badlands. We don't go there."
  • Whole Album Reference: hopeless fountain kingdom, to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.
  • Wandering Walk of Madness: "Control" is narrated by a manic, possibly mentally ill person who describes walking around their house all night long.
    I paced around for hours on empty
    I jumped at the slightest of sounds
    And I couldn't stand the person inside me
    I turned all the mirrors around

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