By Vanessa Marie Carlson
“‘People don’t want to hear music that makes them feel bad,’ and I f***ing disagree because I think music IS for feeling bad, I think music is for feeling not alone,” -Halsey
It has been nearly two weeks since the release of Halsey’s fifth album, The Great Impersonator, (October 25, 2024) and I am still reeling. The pre-release marketing successfully teased snippets on social media referencing music icons ranging from David Bowie to Evanescence, all of which inspired the decades-spanning aesthetic of the album. Though this unique tactic had me counting down the days until the full project was available on streaming platforms, nothing could have prepared me for the scale of emotions I felt (and tears I cried) during the one hour and six minute masterpiece.
I was all of 15 years old when Halsey’s Room 93, the EP that started it all, came out. I was scrolling through Tumblr, unsupervised of course, and found myself relating to aspects of the singer’s lyrics, especially those boasting more mature themes such as wanting to be loved. wanting to be seen. But it was Halsey’s willingness to be vulnerable that I grew irrevocably attached to above all else. It was the first time I can ever recall seeing myself so clearly in someone else’s words, to the extent that I felt as though I could have written that, all while having so much of my own experience to add and interject. (Yes, I was 15, but if you know me in real life, you know that the universe had already awarded me by then with more than enough life experiences to write a book about.) I have always believed that vulnerability is stark, shocking, and beautiful, and my goal as a writer is to honor that in my own work, regardless of publication status. The Great Impersonator tackles Halsey’s recent battle with illness and the simultaneous battle of attempting to hide it from the media, mortality, and perception, all from an incredibly abstract and artistic point of view, while still maintaining the threads of vulnerability that they have woven from the start of their career. Like Halsey, I am a child of a single-parent household. I am a child that raised myself. And, I am a child that began writing because I needed to articulate things that I did not hear verbalized until this album.
That being said, this “review” is going to be more personal and interpretive than my usual work on EMSU Media, but I am excited to delve into how this album, largely about perception, has shifted my own.
The first tear I shed during the opening track, “Only Living Girl in LA,” was over the lyrics, “I think I’m special ‘cause I cut myself wide open / As if it’s honorable to bleed.” As the singer worries about how many people will attend the funeral they’re loosely planning for themself as the beats transform from those of a ballad to those of modern techno, I caught myself worrying about how rare it is to hear something and feel such an immediate and strong resonance to it. I picked up the notion somewhere in the midst of my childhood that pain is a right of passage, that humans need to go through something in order to get somewhere else. to get somewhere better. I would catch myself asking the God I was learning about in Catholic school if that was my thing… after everything, whether seemingly insignificant or quite the opposite. Was that enough pain for me to become everything I dream of being now? It is no surprise that death was a taboo topic in a religion-based school system, but it is still a discussion of discomfort now, even in the opposing, progressive art school environment I have been in for the last four years. I chose the quote that I did to open this piece because despite Halsey being an artist, and despite art traditionally being a known intersection of comfort and disturbance, there has been so much flack from the media descending on this album since the release, that I believe many of us have lost sight of what it means to truly feel. Whether you relate to Halsey’s words to the extent that I do or not, did this album make you uncomfortable? Is that why you didn’t like it? I am arguing that that was the point. To feel something uneasy. To have an uneasy time explaining why you feel the way that you do about the topics enclosed. That is art. That is the art of perception.
I cannot speak to the level of metaphor used in “Letter to God (1974),” but it paints a pretty legitimate portrait of things that still sting from my childhood. Halsey sings of a boy she went to school with who had Leukemia at a young age, and therefore felt that he got everything he wanted as a direct result, including parents that didn’t fight. I never wished to be ill like Halsey prays for in this song, but I’ve never broken a bone, and I remember wanting a neon pink cast that all of my friends (and the boy I had a crush on) could sign at recess. I think I wanted my parents to be worried about something other than who could yell the loudest. I think I probably came off as wanting attention, but I’m yelling the loudest when I say that is surface level and bones are buried deep. The next Letter, “Letter to God (1983),” comes four songs later on the album. Halsey sings from an older point of view, but still carries the themes of how fragile mortality is and being careful what you wish for, or pray for. As someone who copes with dark humor as my defense mechanism of choice, I have a deep appreciation for the juxtaposition of what it means to feel the loss of people close to you, while making jokes about feeling yourself slipping away. There is something incredibly profound in making such a comparison, and I have incomprehensible gratitude for Halsey being brave enough to put it in writing. The final Letter, “Letter to God (1998),” is the second to last song on the album, coming eight songs after the second Letter. Halsey now sings from their current perspective, after having a child, and regrets praying for illness for so much of their life because of their child. The letter progression is such a gut-wrenchingly effective device to show their shift in perception. It is a perfect demonstration of exemplifying vulnerability, while remaining self-aware and accountable, even for things out of the singer’s control. I have never been one for contradictions, but this album has shown me the beauty in those unavoidable. The growth that comes from antagonism.
The 18-song album closes with the title track, “The Great Impersonator,” which closes with the lyrics, “In here lies the great impersonator.” This song encompasses everything from the somewhat cliche notion of faking it until you make it, to the literal phenomenon of Imposter Syndrome that myself along with so many creatives face, to the great facade of being okay. Imposter Syndrome is defined as, “the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills,” according to Oxford Dictionary. Imposter Syndrome is the embodiment of growth coming from antagonism, that to feel success, you need to know what failure feels like. In regards to this album, to feel yourself, you need to feel everything else.
In regards to the world around us and the universe above us, I turned out the way I did (Okay! I turned out okay!) because I never allowed myself to run from my feelings. Because I allowed myself instead to look in the mirror through tears and dilated eyes and say, this sucks but I will be a better person because of this. Listening to this album had that same cathartic effect of feeling like a better person, even through the tears.
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