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HomeMusicHalsey: The Nice Impersonator Album Assessment

Halsey: The Nice Impersonator Album Assessment


This type of skewed self-perception is attention-grabbing, however Halsey isn’t essentially deft sufficient in singer-songwriter mode to tug off a nuanced exploration of it. (Their greatest songs—“With out Me,” “You need to be unhappy,” “Nightmare”—are ultra-efficient and bulldozer-subtle, huge feelings leading to huge payoffs.) On “Lonely Is the Muse,” they sing about being “lonely and forgotten” because the muse for previous artist boyfriends; the refrain is sharp and witty, and it’s additionally one of the crucial head-spinning passages in pop this yr:

I’ve impressed platinum information

I’ve earned platinum airline standing

And I mined a pair diamonds

From the tales in my head

However I’m decreased to only a physique

Right here in another person’s mattress

The muse’s function in artwork, traditionally, has been one among diminishment and objectification, however you’d be hard-pressed to counsel Halsey is a few form of Dora Maar—Halsey is likely one of the most profitable artists of their technology, and lots of of their largest hits, just like the completely brutal Sizzling 100 No. 1 “With out Me,” perform character assassinations of former romantic companions with the precision of an MI6 agent. There’s completely no convincing argument to be made that G-Eazy’s songs about Halsey are taken extra critically than Halsey’s about G-Eazy, so it’s important to surprise in regards to the objective and worth of this music; is it to conjure a way of victimhood? To make some listeners really feel unhealthy for not exalting her genius? There’s no accounting for a way somebody feels, clearly, however as a listener, it’s jarring to listen to a passage like this, whose indulgently unhappy veneer hides a handy rejection of its creator’s personal company and expertise. Does Halsey see completely no irony in claiming she bears the burden of hundreds of thousands of followers’ expectations earlier than, 40-odd minutes later, decreasing her personal output to “a pair diamonds”?

It’s laborious to say, in truth, however a lot of The Nice Impersonator does really feel prefer it’s designed to place Halsey as a tortured, singular artist: Their standing as a loner weirdo is invoked on “Darwinism,” a David Bowie tribute that feels like Radiohead, and the PJ Harvey-inspired lower “Canine Years,” itself one of many album’s higher approximations. (It additionally incorporates a real clunker of a illness pun: “I’m attempting to B constructive however O it’s actually laborious.”) A properly designed publicity web site for the album proudly notes that The Nice Impersonator is the primary time producers Michael Uzowuru and Alex G, vocal producer Caleb Laven, and engineer Sean Matsukawa “have labored collectively on a undertaking since Frank Ocean’s Countless and Blonde”—a considerably ineffective element that solely actually tells you that Halsey is hoping you’ll hear this as a Nice Album. In actuality, it’s one huge try at trompe l’oeil, its studio sounds and mumbles of between-take chatter fastidiously positioned to make you’re feeling such as you’re seeing greatness conjured earlier than your eyes. An Alex G fan would solely acknowledge his presence right here as a result of you’ll be able to actually hear him speaking in a few songs; other than that, the nameless, polyester takes on soft-rock and uncooked folks bear no similarity to his personal music. The principle musical discovery right here is perhaps that even the fellows from Blonde can churn out When We Have been Younger alternative band-worthy pop-punk in the event that they actually strive.

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