Halsey Unravels Her Identity on “The Great Impersonator”
Halsey’s ‘The Great Impersonator’ is her 5th studio album and with that, the most evolved and personal she’s been on a record. Released to coincide with her debut EP, ‘Room 93’, the arc she’s taken over the last decade has allowed her to peel back the layers of herself with each successive project, creating a bookend for what was originally conceptually created as her final album. Halsey’s history of chronic illness (Lupus and T-cell disorder) made this a possibility, but it seems that she is on the road to recovery, thankfully so.
In anticipation of the album, and coinciding with the 18 tracks, Halsey impersonated her musical inspirations as they related to each song in the 18 days before the album’s release. Artists ranged from the 60s to even herself off of ‘Badlands’, creating a look book and soundscape that the album can be traced back to.
In the lead up to the album, Halsey released a total of 5 singles,
‘The End’ (June 4, 2024)
‘Lucky’ (July 26, 2024)
‘Lonely is the Muse’ (August 15, 2024)
‘Ego’ (September 6, 2024)
‘I Never Loved You’ (October 10, 2024)
‘The End’ introduces the primary themes the album would be examining: her chronic illness, relationships, death, and ego. Her retrospective look at several diagnoses that changed each year coincides with her search for love, two things that she is using to try and heal herself. Several songs from the album reference this tug of war: ‘Dog Years’, ‘Panic Attack’, and ‘Lucky’. The results of this are various versions that take different tones with melancholic and downbeat production (‘The End’, ‘Dog Years’), and others that provide more levity (‘Panic Attack’, ‘Lucky’).
As the lead single for the album, ‘Lucky’ strikes a balance as a more pop forward record while retaining the emotional resonance she’s striving for with the project. The song’s bridge succinctly encapsulates the thesis of the album: “Then I left the doctor’s office full of tears / Became a single mom at my premiere / And I told everybody I was fine for a whole damn year / And that’s the biggest lie of my career.” Appearing as the 16th track out of 18, ‘Lucky’ pulls double duty as a near summary of the album. As a lead single, it introduced the ideas, and as track 16, it wraps them up.
‘Lonely is the Muse’ draws inspiration from Amy Lee of Evanescence, recreating a grungier sound that stands out amongst the track list. ‘Ego’ turns towards a punkier sound reminiscent of The Cranberries, and it’s in this angsty mood that Halsey exclaims how she needs to kill her ego: “I think that I should try to kill my ego / ‘Cause if I don’t, my ego might kill me / I’m all grown up but somehow lately / I’m acting like a fucking baby / I’m really not as happy as I seem.” The final single released, ‘I Never Loved You’, makes the clearest connection between her sickness and relationships as she tells of being on the operating table, the damage inside being enough for her partner to escape, and protecting her ego by claiming “I never loved you.”
The opening track of the album, ‘Only Living Girl in LA’, plays as a free verse that would be strung on an acoustic guitar at an open mic night. With no chorus or hook to break apart the verses, Halsey flows through her insecurities and troubles with introspective lyrics. Her personal storytelling is one that doesn’t devolve into self-seriousness, but instead retains its individualized and emotionally rich substance.
There are a trio of songs that each occur every quarter of the album, ‘Letter To God’, each designated by a different year (1974, 1983, 1998), and musically inspired by a different musician of their respective year (Cher, Bruce Springsteen, Aaliyah). With each song, Halsey is creating a timeline of how she’s come to deal with her illness and the remedies that may come around. With 1974, Halsey sings about an abusive household with her as the child, wishing that she’d be sick so that her parents may pay attention to her: “Please, God, I wanna be sick / I don’t wanna hurt so get it over with quick.” ‘1983’ moves the timeline forward to reflect on how Halsey has gotten her wish, she finds herself in a situation where she is finally loved, but her sickness presents itself as fear that it could be over any minute, “Please, God, I don’t wanna be sick / And I don’t wanna hurt, so get it over with quick.” The final song in the trio, ‘1998’, finds Halsey having received her prayer, she’s found someone to love and someone to love her, but she’s still sick, a twist of fate where these two opposing forces are vying for her. This trio of songs charts her journey through pain towards what she’s dreamt about, finding love, even if it means that she’s sick, her life’s fulfilled.
Possibly the most notable song from the album, ‘Hometown’ discusses the journey towards recovery that Halsey’s been on, her hometown being a place that would feel like a regression if she were to return. By telling the story of Davey, a classmate and friend that had passed at 17, and making reference to classmates who passed in car accidents, she ruminates on how her hometown is a place of tragedy that would be better left behind to move forward. Her lyric “And he’s evergreen at seventeen for the last eleven years,” plays two roles; making explicit reference to Davey, she compares him to an evergreen tree, one that is always green no matter the season. While he may’ve passed at 17, his memory lives on as “Davey’s runnin’ for the touchdown.” Its second role makes reference to Halsey’s attempted suicide at 17, and just like the evergreen tree, she was able to survive through tragedy and sickness to today.
And as the closing and title track for the album, “The Great Impersonator” acts as an epilogue for her journey. She questions how she’s written her stories through her songs and how they may be interpreted after her death, how their original meaning may be distorted over time. While she admits to having written lyrics that began as lies, this album’s messaging has proved that she is now creating as an honest artist, “Does a story die with its narrator? / Surely it’s forgotten sooner or later / Hope they spell my name right in the paper / In here lies the great impersonator.”
At 18 songs, “The Great Impersonator” feels expansive, and at times like it is dipping into some repetitiveness. Songs retain similar production and they can sound like they are blending together upon first listen, but they gradually break apart into their own identities. Judging by her impersonations, it is possible to understand how each artist was inspired by someone before them, and how Halsey’s impersonations put them into a musical timeline charting the decades of sound.
Her previous album, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power”, received an extended edition, and then a deluxe that took the song counts from 13 to 16 to 19, and there’s something about this project that feels like it jumps all the way to Deluxe. There could be a version of “The Great Impersonator” that plays tighter, and more concise with its ideas. With the release of her 5 singles, they were put together into an EP titled, “I Never Loved You”, and it could've been a novel idea for those 5 singles to remain as their own EP, with the album as the remaining 13 songs, effectively creating a prelude for the album. Movies have deleted scenes, and when added back in, sometimes it’s noticeable why they were excised, other times they help color in the picture. Halsey accomplishes the latter.
