Album Review: Halsey – The Great Impersonator
3 min read
When pop-rock star Halsey started working on her fourth studio album The Great Impersonator, she believed it would be her final project. Coming after her lupus diagnosis, the album is a reflection of the multi Grammy award-winning artist’s career and her thoughts about life and death . In this conceptual album, Halsey explores how she believed her music would have sounded in decades ranging from the 1970s to the 2000s with each track inspired by a major artist or public figure.
While most of the songs are inspired by musicians and taken on the sound of their discography the very first track stands out for being inspired by an actress, Marylin Monroe. The Only Living Girl in LA is a poignant track that reflects on celebrity culture and fans’ responses to their lives and deaths. A stripped-back track with limited guitar backing, it feels both emotive and timely. As Halsey sings “If I try to leave my body at least I know it was never mine” it brings to mind current discourse around parasocial relationships and ghoulish responses to celebrity death. The Monroe inspiration shows how timeless the topic is, and while the track may not sound like anything sung by her it certainly taps into her mythology.
Several of the other tracks also deal with the difficulties of stardom. Ego has a frantic pop-punk sound with a loud drumline and rapid vocals, inspired by the punk band The Cranberries. The lyrics deal with concerns about appearance as Halsey sings “I worry what you’ll think of me”, and having an oversized ego due to fame. She sounds almost desperate as she states “I have to kill my ego or my ego might kill me”. Lucky, inspired by Britney Spears, deals with the contrast between perceived success and turbulent personal lives. The almost childlike vocals seem inspired by Spears’s singing style, as well as lending the track a kind of naivety. Halsey taps into deeply personal anecdotes in the lyrics talking about shaving her head because she “got sick” and becoming a “single mum”.
The very personal tone is woven throughout the album. The End is a deeply melancholy track that deals with Halsey’s experiences with physical and mental illness. The pained vocals and guitar backing give it a desperate edge as she sings “If we knew it was the end of the world would you stay?”. I Belive in Magic keeps the highly personal tone with a lighter subject matter with hopeful lyrics about her son. A child’s laughter is interwoven into the song and the lyrics are sweet as she sings ” I started to believe in love the day I met my little twin”.
The album is one that is unshakeably unapologetically personal. It doesn’t shy away from talking about many serious and personal matters and while this may be risky it really does work. The songs are hard to forget and while many are catchy, Ego in particular, the emotion is what makes her really stand out. Where the album falls slightly short is in sounding like the inspiration, while it can be pieced out if you list carefully the personal nature of the lyrics grates against the attempt to sound like someone else. However, this makes the album no less powerful, and doesn’t stop it from being one of the most unforgettable albums of the year.
Related posts:
