We Are All The Great Impersonator
So, here’s the breakdown – Halsey’s innovation has reached new heights.
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Indie pop singer-songwriter Halsey dropped their fifth studio album, “The Great Impersonator,” just ahead of Halloween. Leading up to its release, Halsey shared detailed portraits dressed and made up as a number of their famous musician idols, from Dolly Parton to Stevie Nicks and Amy Lee of Evanescence.
Thematically, the album grapples with mortality – the singer revealed both in several press appearances and through their songwriting that they have battled serious health conditions over the past several years. These led to a number of existential near-death experiences. Halsey has been privately juggling raising a son, managing mental health issues, and undergoing treatment for leukemia and lupus.
The irony of the album is that it is the most confessional and raw writing Halsey has delivered to date, and yet, it is dressed up in a costume. The intricate promotional campaign hinted at several songs’ sonic references to a number of hits. “Panic Attack” delivers a 1970s Fleetwood Mac “Dreams” psychedelic soul at its core. “Letter To God (1983)” includes some Springsteenian “I’m On Fire” synths (likely, a reference to Halsey’s upbringing in a working class New Jersey suburb), while “Lonely Is The Muse” is all Evanescence emo, and “Hometown” is rife with Dolly Parton’s twang.
Amid the sonic references, the songwriting is often conceptually darker than that of the artists that Halsey references. Growing up in a dysfunctional family and battling serious health issues and addiction, Halsey learned to wear many faces until they reached success. They were diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a young age, a condition their mother lives with as well. Despite family challenges, the singer now maintains a close relationship with their parents, and a newfound reverence for the artists that came before them.
While the many musicians referenced across “Impersonator” have drastically different sounds and aesthetics, they bear one throughline – their words got a young Halsey through some of the most painful points in their life and helped them feel seen, a feat they accomplish on this album for their own generation of listeners.
A number of the artists either interpolated or referenced on “Impersonator” are widely regarded as symbols of the American dream. On “Hometown,” Halsey manages to both honor Dolly Parton and cut the concept of the American dream down to size. They sing about a deceased classmate lost to drugs, who will always be “evergreen at 17,” while they finished school and moved on past the struggles of their hometown in their absence.
“Darwinism,” which Halsey described as a Radiohead homage, explores feelings of isolation, and desires for love, companionship, and contentment while feeling entirely different from their peers. The moody track starts with “there’s a lot of fish out in the pond/in the oceans and the rivers and waterfalls/but if I’m made for land and not the sea at all/could I crawl and find some kind Neanderthal?”
The song’s bone-chilling view into the singer’s inner monologue is one that is deeply relatable to anyone who has gone through difficult times or struggled in relationships, and feeling alone while being surrounded by many who silently endure the same. The song’s lyricism bears a near iambic pentameter level of rhythmic flow.
On “Lonely Is The Muse,” Halsey slowly turns up the heat on a rock hit that takes aim at the concept of being a muse used and discarded. While the general concept is applicable to countless women in the arts, “Lonely Is The Muse” conjures imagery of Matty Healy, who is long thought to be the subject of the singer’s 2015 hit “Colors.” In the decade since, Healy has since, ironically, become the alleged muse of much of Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” where he instead becomes a muse of chaos and destruction (allegedly).
Halsey channels Fiona Apple on the tender “Arsonist,” which references their child’s (seemingly) regrettable father. “Arsonist, burning down the world to feel its heat/The arsonist doesn't feel the embers on his feet/Arsonist, your human starter kit came incomplete/My apologies, arsonist, you loved me,” both holds the song’s muse accountable for their controlling behaviors and provides grace for the person’s own trauma that caused them to behave like an emotional arsonist.
Halsey goes on to describe him, “I'm glued to a building that's on fire/Handcuffed to a narcissistic liar/Empty space and lethargy/Eyes aglaze with apathy,” and closes out the song whispering about how a father’s DNA remains inside the mother’s body for seven years, insinuating that they are still healing from this relationship.
The Tori Amos infused “Life of the Spider” is an intimate piano ballad that metaphorically relates their experience of undergoing cancer treatments with an unsupportive partner at their side to feeling like an insect pest lingering in the bathroom.
While their partner once regarded them as a beautiful muse, they left them discarded and feeling like a burden in their most vulnerable moment. The phenomenon of romantic partners leaving their significant others during pregnancy, cancer treatment, and other moments of vulnerability is nothing new, but the simple metaphor of the spider Halsey uses in this song highlights how macabre it really is.
As I listened to “The Great Impersonator” on Halloween night, strolling through my neighborhood and taking in the elaborate decor, I had the realization that this album will truly stand the test of time because we are all the great impersonator in different moments.
Parents tired from a long day’s work dressed up in festive ensembles to help their children feel celebrated. Teenagers teetered between childlike wonder and the treacherous landscape of adulthood, dressed up for the one day a year that allows them to mask their growing pains. The insular neighbors of Los Angeles made small talk, while the person next door may never really have a window into their interior lives.
“The Great Impersonator” is proof that trying on different versions of oneself is seldom for nought, and often provides greater space for healing and understanding. It is a lyrically and sonically ambitious album, and one that feels incredibly relevant in the current image-obsessed culture.