Album Review: The Great Impersonator

Album cover for "The Great Impersonator" by Halsey, featuring a monochrome portrait with vivid makeup and a prominent golden star motif.

“I really thought this album might be the last one I ever made. When you get sick like that, you

start thinking about ways it could have all been different. What if this isn’t how it all went down?

18 year old Ashley becomes Halsey in 2014. What if I debuted in the early 2000s? The ‘90s?

The '80s? The '70s? Am I still Halsey every time? In every timeline? Do I still get sick? Do I

become a mom? Am I happy? Lonely? Have I done enough? Have I told the truth? I spent half

my life being someone else, I never stopped to ask myself: If it all ended right now, is this the

person you’d be proud to leave behind? Is it even you?”

- Halsey, in regards to the album, The Great Impersonator

Halsey has been one of the most popular and best singer-songwriters of this generation. Halsey,

Real Name Ashley grew up in New Jersey and has been making music since 2014 when she

got signed to her first label. That same year she released her first EP; “Room 93”. In 2015, She

would release her debut album, “Badlands” which would be received well critically. In 2016,

she’d had one her biggest song releases to date alongside The Chainsmokers called “Closer” which at the time of this review is 14 times Platinum. In 2017, she’d release her second album “Hopeless Fountain Kingdom” showing a new more “radio-friendly” sound. She’d release another big single in 2018 titled “Eastside” featuring Khalid and Benny Blanco. In 2020, She’d release album number three, titled “Manic” which would be her first full length release on her new label of Capitol Records. Manic would also feature her biggest song to date in “Without Me” which went Diamond. One year later, she’d trade the “radio-friendly” sound to a grittier and darker tone with her fourth album “If I can’t have love, I want Power” which would gain a very positive reaction in the eyes of critics. Little did she know how the next couple years would change everything for her, both personally and in her career.

In 2023, she’d part ways with Capitol Records due to drama with releasing a nin-album single,

titled “So Good”, to which she would then sign with Columbia Records in 2024. 2024, would be a massive year for Ashley, in one way or another. In June of 2024, Halsey would reveal she was diagnosed with Lupus and a rare T Cell Disorder. She would say on Instagram “I realize everyone is catching up with news I’ve held in for a long time, and I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to share. You’ve all been so kind so I want to share a bit more. In 2022, I was first diagnosed with Lupus SLE and then a rare T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder. Both of which are currently being managed, or in remission; and both of which I will likely have for the duration of my life."

These events would indirectly inspire her forthcoming album, The Great Impersonator.

In the summer of 2024, some fans would receive letters from Halsey teasing the upcoming

album and announcing the release date of the first single from the album “The End”. Following

this she would release her second single “Lucky”, paying heavy homage to Britney Spears’

2000s classic of the same name. “Lonely is the Muse”, the third single, was released on August

15th. ” The fourth single, “Ego”, would release on September 6th. The final single ahead of the album “I never loved you” would release 15 days ahead of the album’s release date of October 25th. The Deluxe would come on May 1st of 2026. Throughout the days building up to the album’s release, Halsey would post various images of herself portraying certain people she idolized in certain songs or had in mind for various portions of the album. People from Stevie Nicks, to Bruce Springsteen, to Aaliyah, to Britney Spears, to even Marilyn Monroe. I could discuss how amazing that is but I’d be writing this forever. I urge all reading this to look into those, they’re incredible.

Now I have been a Halsey fan since the Badlands days. This album was such an incredible concept and was delivered flawlessly by Halsey. There are certain songs I want to specifically highlight within this review. Those being: The End, Lucky, Lonely is the Muse and Alice of the Upper Class (Exclusive to the Deluxe Version).

The End, inspired by Joni Mitchell, is a sad acoustic song. Within this song, Halsey opens up

about her struggles with bipolar disorder, endometriosis, and other illnesses. In verse 1 we already start to talk about that saying: “Every couple of years now, a doctor says I'm sick, pulls out a brand new bag of tricks, and then they lay it on me, and at first, it was my brain, then a skeleton in pain, And I don't like to complain, but I'm saying sorry”. And in verse 2, she realizes she’s finding love still during this troubling time; “So I ran into the clinic and I asked to see the man, With his white coat and his stethoscope like a snake around his hand, And I told him I'm not bitter 'cause I finally found a lover, Who's better for my liver, and now I'll finally recover”. The chorus is the most heartbreaking part of this, with the lyrics reading, “If you knew it was the end of the world, could you love me like a child?, Could you hold me in the dark? If you knew it was the end of the world, would you like to stay a while? Would you leave when it gets hard?” Halsey knows it isn’t the end of the world, but wants to be loved and held like it is.

Lucky, heavily inspired by Britney Spears’ 2000 hit by the same name. She begins the song with a comparison to the myth of icarus before referring to herself in the 3rd person “Everybody, get in line to meet the girl who flew too high, Who does it all just to be liked by strangers that she met online. Did it all to be included, my self-loathing so deep-rooted, Inner child's unrecruited, truth is I'm not suited for it”. The chorus is a direct homage to the Britney song except she shifts the perspective from 3rd person (Britney’s) to 1st person (Halsey). Flipping the lines from “she’s so lucky, she’s a star” to “I’m so lucky, I’m a star” and so on and so forth. I truly want to talk about the Bridge in the ending parts of this song. Halsey says in the bridge “I shaved my head four times because I wanted to, and then I did it one more time 'cause I got sick (I am so lucky) and I thought I changed so much, nobody would notice it, and no one did. 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”. A lot of this album is so heartbreaking and lines like these are why. You go through a lot of change and it makes it hard for people to spot when change happens due to actual life events or just creativity. And in turn part of us, as humans, don't want to feel pitied by the world in those moments but it still hurts to not get it. Having to put a mask up is hard regularly so I can only imagine what that was like for Halsey in her situation.

Lonely is The Muse, is inspired by Amy Lee, the lead singer of band Evanescence. Just the overall dialogue of essentially feeling the need to be something or someone else to fit in. The chorus in the song says “I always knew I was a martyr, And that Jesus was one too. But I was built from special pieces That I learned how to unscrew, And I can always reassemble, To fit perfectly for you, Or anybody that decides, That I'm of use. Lonely is the muse”. Despite her success and fame, she still feels this need for acceptance. Saying you can always reassemble and fit somebody else whenever someone else needs you to be something. And Halsey acknowledges what she’s done in her career in the same song. The second verse is just as clear of a view of this idea as the chorus. In the second verse, she says “So whеre do I go in the process, Whеn I'm just an apparatus? I've inspired platinum records, I've earned platinum airline status., And I mined a couple diamonds, From the stories in my head, But I'm reduced to just a body, Here in someone else's bed.” She has not only been the reason for other platinum records but her own as well. And saying she mined some diamonds, in reference to the diamond records she has made, like Without Me. She did all that and yet, she feels like it doesn’t matter.

Lastly, Alice of the Upper Class, which without confirmation is claimed to have been inspired by

Avril Lavigne, is one of the 7 additional tracks added to the album in the deluxe version. Within

this song, Halsey speaks against capitalism and the American Dream. Whalsey likens her younger self to the titular character from the 1865 book, Alice in Wonderland, where she looks through the veneer of the ‘looking glass’, which serves as her ‘imposter’ adult body, at the state of the world and ultimately, the corrupt capitalism it’s in, knowing that she too, slots into it. The Alice comparisons exist in the pre chorus, which says “Like Alice through the looking glass, I'm

tired of the upper class.” She also uses the chorus to shine light on her bipolar disorder; “I'm a

freak, yeah, I'm a psycho I feel so good when I am hypomanic, I'm mechanically up all night,

though. I took another dose but I don't think it's micro, I'm a beast, yeah, I'm a monster, I knew

beauty then I lost her, In a coma, can't defrost her, Can't you see that I'm an imposter?” This album being called The Great Impersonator makes the last line hit so much harder.

In conclusion, this album is a love letter to all of Halsey’s idols. She has explained this album was “made in the space between Life and Death” and truly, it’s apparent in the subject matter. Songs like The End and Dog Years talk so heavily about the end of life but the album isn’t necessarily sad, there’s life intertwined into it as well.There’s pain, triumph, vulnerability and honesty. A lot of albums don’t check all these boxes and that’s what makes an album like this so special... And in such a tough life moment, she constructed a masterpiece. Although inspired by so many, The Great Impersonator is Halsey’s Magnum opus, one that she is the sole creator of. I want to add in the last lines of the album, from the title track, “The Great Impersonator, “Does a story die with its narrator? Surely it's forgotten soon or later. Hope they spell my name right in the paper, In here lies the great impersonator”