Album Review: The Great Impersonator by Halsey

Halsey made The Great Impersonator in the limbo between life and death. The singer revealed earlier this year that they had been diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and a "rare T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder" in 2022. On this whopping 18-track album, Halsey challenges mortality as they come to terms with their illness and the possibility that this record could be their last.

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It takes great skill to gracefully walk a tightrope between honesty and oversharing. Halsey's new album The Great Impersonator is a high-concept project that, despite its ambition, never finds this balance. With aspirations of capturing emotional diversity, the album trips over its attempts at grandiosity, succumbing to overproduction, sporadic callbacks, and a referentiality that feels more self-indulging than revelatory.

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When Halsey warns that an upcoming album of hers “is about feeling bad”, as she briefly did on a live stream back in December of 2023, there’s plenty of reason to be concerned. As the original queen of the 2014 Tumblr girls with flower crowns, ripped fishnets, and Manic Panic dye jobs, Halsey’s discography has been characterized by sadness, rage, and existential angst for a decade. Considering that hyperbole and melodrama have been staples in Halsey’s toolkit for creating cinematic universes for each of her previous four albums, referring to the overall emotional landscape of her newest record as simply “bad” is a drastic understatement.

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There are a couple of months still left in the year, but it feels safe to say right now that, as an album that bites off every bit as much as it can chew, and maybe a little more, Halsey‘s “The Great Impersonator” is 2024’s most unabashedly ambitious record by a major pop artist. It’s also the saddest, by about a country mile. One of the year’s best? Yes, that too.

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Throughout their career, Halsey has been lots of different things to different people. She was the blue-haired 19-year-old singing about her Brooklyn boyfriend and lilac skies ('Badlands'); the 23-year-old offering an elaborately stylised 'Romeo and Juliet' concept album ('Hopeless Fountain Kingdom'); the 25-year-old navigating the blurring lines between Halsey, the art, and Ashley, the artist ('Manic'); then the 27-year-old delving into a Westwood-clad, Nine Inch Nails-produced world of rock and childbirth ('If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power' ). Her fifth record, 'The Great Impersonator', carries the imprint of those versions of her.

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Halsey isn't a great impersonator. The singer's fifth studio album, The Great Impersonator, draws its influence from the artists who have inspired her, from David Bowie to Britney Spears, but Halsey's voice--both literally and figuratively--is distinctly her own. The album's myriad references are weaved throughout its 18 tracks in service of her personal story, as she grapples with love, family, fame, and--especially--death.

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