It's about damn time the world's had a pop-star that's stubborn, real, pissed off and doing something about it. She uses her popularity to preach body-positivity and self-acceptance, and she is single-handedly changing the face of the music industry. 20-year-old Ashley Nicolette Frangipane (she's the same age as me, now I really feel like I've done nothing with my life), who goes by the stage name Halsey, is taking over the world and has no intention of stopping.
Halsey isn't just a pretty face. She doesn't fit neatly into a box. She's biracial, openly bisexual, and struggles with bipolar disorder, making her not only unique, but approachable. Many celebrities are portrayed as being picture-perfect people with flawless lives and no problems, which makes it difficult for their fans to feel accepted, because they cannot be like their idols. But Halsey is so open and accepting of who she is that it gives her fans, like myself, the strength to feel okay with whatever they're dealing with.
The thing that initially attracted me to Halsey was the fact that she does what she wants when she wants, and doesn't let anybody's opinions change how she feels. She wanted blue hair, so she dyed her hair blue. She wanted to cut her hair off, so she cut it all off. She wanted to sing songs about sex, so she sang songs about sex. She doesn't care what the tabloids think about her hair, her attitude or her music.
In an interview Halsey conducted with The FADER, she explains the criticism her re-release music video for the song "Ghost" received. In the first video, the lead role was played by a male counter-part, but in the re-release, the lead counter-part was a female. Halsey explains how girl-on-girl romance is deemed "pornographic," and "inappropriate," while boy-on-girl romance is explained as "a great love story."
There are a few songs off of BADLANDS in particular that I'm drawn to, (although I love them all), because the messages they send are so terrifyingly accurate. For example, in "Gasoline," Halsey describes what it's like living in front of cameras 24/7: "Do you tear yourself apart to entertain like me? // You're part of a machine, you are not a human being. // Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline."
Halsey is not afraid of anything. On the track “Castle,” which is the first song on the album, she confronts sexism: "I’m headed straight for the castle // They’ve got the kingdom locked up // And there’s an old man sitting on the throne that's saying I should probably keep my pretty mouth shut." And on the bone chilling “Control,” Halsey peers into her own darkness, explaining what it's like to battle bipolar disorder, yelling: “God damn right // You should be scared of me // I'm well acquainted with villains that live in my bed // They beg me to write them so they'll never die when I'm dead.”
