Come One, Come All to Experience Halsey’s Next Trick: The Great Impersonator
Written by: Enriko Pratt
Step right up! Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, better known as Halsey bares it all in the show-stopping new record titled The Great Impersonator. This album, in question, was what Halsey thought would be her last.
The Great Impersonator is quite eclectic, much like the artist who created it. As a Day One Halsey fan, I’ve seen artistic growth from the beginning. One of the biggest things that drew me to her was her lyrics—biting, honest, and personal to me, because my experiences were apparently very similar to Halsey’s, and on this new record, I expected to continue to be attacked by her words.
In regards to sound, Halsey has always been inherently alternative, but she has been known to dive into many other genres, including a more mainstream pop-leaning sound and a grungier, harder rock aesthetic (my personal favorite), plus many others—all of which are present in this new album.
The album starts with a more minimal acoustic guitar in the delightful (and six-minute-long) opener “Only Girl Living in LA.” Obviously, this statement isn’t true, millions of people live in LA—it’s one of the most well-known cities in the world. However, I can sympathize with how Halsey is feeling. As someone who also lives in a big city and is pursuing a career in entertainment, I feel a strange type of loneliness.
“I don’t know if I could sell out my own funeral.”
This line stood out to me initially, because I can understand feeling like no one would come to my funeral, as if my impact wasn’t great enough, as if my friendships were only for show. As usual, Halsey knows how to hit me where it hurts.
The pain surely doesn’t end there. The first song released from this new record was “The End,” a song detailing Halsey’s belief that her life was going to end revealing that she was diagnosed with lupus and T-cell disorder. The world was given this song first to catch everyone up on Halsey’s struggle to stay alive, and as a warning that this album was going to bruise.
One of Halsey’s pre-release promotions for this record was the idea of different decades influencing the sounds of certain tracks. The different variants of the albums had new covers inspired by The 70’s, The 80’s, The 90’s, and the 2000’s.
Throughout The Great Impersonator, Halsey uses this tactic in three interlude-like tracks each marked as a “Letter to God” and having some association with a different year in a different decade. The progression of these tracks spread out across the album details Halsey’s sickness, showcasing the fear that she could be the cause of her possible death.
In “Letter to God (1974),” we get the line “Please God, I wanna be sick.” It’s from a child’s perspective, wanting the attention that all kids want. It’s like seeing the child who broke a bone and everyone is signing their cast. Halsey wants to be loved in that way. Harmless. right?
Then we get to “Letter to God (1983), the line is now changed to “Please God, I don’t wanna be sick,” as if Halsey got what she wished for, but it wasn’t what she actually wanted. Now she’s in pain and pleading to the God she prayed to for her safety.
“Letter to God (1998)” is the last of the trilogy, and this time the line is “Please God, oh, you’ve gotta be sick,” essentially calling out the God she prayed to for making her go through this pain and then ignoring her other prayers as if it’s too busy up in heaven.
I won’t lie and say there are lighter topics on this album, but let’s change the pace and focus on some of my favorite standout tracks.
As mentioned before, I am a big fan of the rock Halsey sound, and the current single “Ego,” a 90’s garage band track, shows similarities to fan-favorite Halsey track “3am” from her third album Manic. Of course, no Halsey track is complete without stabbing me in the heart. The line “I’m really not as happy as I seem,” eventually turning into “I’m really not that happy being me,” was uncalled for, yet incredibly well done.
Another rock Halsey track that stole my heart was “Lonely is the Muse,” a Nirvana/Foo Fighters-esqe offering that gives the fans a Halsey scream at the very end, and that’s truly what the fandom wants from every song if we’re being honest.
I originally intended to focus on the standard edition of The Great Impersonator, but at the time of writing this, Halsey started dropping bonus tracks each inspired by the different decades. In doing so, I found my new favorite Halsey song in the form of the 2000s pop-punk, “Alice of the Upper Class,” giving fans an Avril Lavigne-coded banger about missing one’s old life after flying so high up into the world of fame.
Other standouts include the Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac-inspired “Panic Attack,” the dark, but sexy “Dog Years,” the painful, and stripped-back piano ballad “Life of The Spider (Draft),” and the experimental highlight “Arsonist.”
The album ends with the title track, which ties back to the theme of the record. Over the years, Halsey has undergone many changes, and as an artist, imposter syndrome is a mandatory feeling. The last promotional campaign before the album’s release was that Halsey would “impersonate” an artist that inspired her and associate it with one of the tracks leading up to the record drop.
Examples include Cher, Marilyn Monroe, Amy Lee, and many more, with Björk being the inspiration behind “The Great Impersonator.” In this final track, Halsey poses many questions concerning who she is as an artist and as a person. She wants to be seen for who she is, but at times, she doesn’t know who that person could be. Then she wonders what her legacy will be.
A line that stands out, in particular, is “Does a story die with its narrator?” She then mentions her death again, ending the album with the line “In here lies the great impersonator,” meaning she feels she will always be remembered as someone who always hid behind some sort of mask or persona, which makes sense with Halsey being her stage name/character.
As a massive Halsey fan, I don’t quite agree with this because I’ve seen her carve her own space in the industry and make her mark, but the truth is that nobody will ever see themselves in the same light others do, thus tying back to the album’s theme.
The Great Impersonator is objectively one of the best Halsey albums, giving some of her greatest lyrical work, and throwing around a mix of experimental sounds that somehow work incredibly well together.
As a huge Badlands and If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power fan, this isn’t my personal favorite Halsey album, but I understand how well put-together this new record is and I implore readers to listen front to back because you’ll find some wonderful gems from a one-of-a-kind artist.
