Halsey (singer)
Ashley Nicolette Frangipane (IPA: /ˌfrændʒɪˈpɑːni/ FRAN-jih-PAH-nee;[1] born September 29, 1994), known professionally as Halsey (/ˈhɔːlzi/ HAWL-zee), is an American singer, songwriter and actress. Noted for her[a] distinctive singing voice,[2] she has received several awards including three Billboard Music Awards, a Billboard Women in Music Award,[3] an American Music Award and nominations for three Grammy Awards. She was included on Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.[4]
Halsey
- Singer
- songwriter
- actress
2012–present
1
Vocals
Halsey was born and raised in New Jersey. Gaining attention from self-released music on social media platforms, she signed with Astralwerks in 2014 to release her debut extended play (EP), Room 93 in October of that year. Her debut studio album, Badlands (2015) was met with critical and commercial success—debuting at number two on the Billboard 200. It received double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), likewise with its singles "Colors", "Gasoline" and "New Americana", the latter of which became her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100—at number 60.
In 2016, Halsey co-performed with The Chainsmokers on their single "Closer", which topped the charts in the US and ten countries, while receiving 14× platinum certification by the RIAA. Her second studio album, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom (2017) embodied a more "radio-friendly" sound than her previous efforts; it peaked the Billboard 200, while its singles "Now or Never" and "Bad at Love" both reached the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100—with the latter peaking in the top five. Her 2018 single, "Eastside" (with Benny Blanco and Khalid), found continued success and peaked within the top ten. Later that year, she was moved to Capitol Records.
Halsey's third studio album, Manic (2020), became her best selling album worldwide. Its lead single, "Without Me" peaked the Billboard Hot 100, received diamond certification by the RIAA, and remains her most commercially successful song as a lead artist. Her fourth album, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power (2021), moved away from her previous sound in favor of a darker industrial sound; described by Halsey as "the album [she] always wanted to make", it was produced by Nine Inch Nails members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and received generally positive reception. She then parted ways with Capitol in 2023, following a controversy surrounding the release of her non-album single, "So Good" the year prior.[5]
In 2020, Billboard reported that Halsey has sold over one million albums and received over six billion streams in the United States.[6][7] Aside from music, she has been involved in suicide prevention awareness, sexual assault victim advocacy, and racial justice protests.[8]
Early life
Ashley Nicolette Frangipane was born in Edison, New Jersey, on September 29, 1994,[9] the daughter of Nicole and Chris Frangipane. Her parents dropped out of college after her mother discovered that she was pregnant with her.[10] Halsey's mother works as an emergency medical technician (EMT),[11] while her father manages a car dealership.[12][13] Her mother is of Italian and Hungarian descent, whereas her father is mostly African American with some distant Irish ancestry. She has two younger brothers named Sevian and Dante.[10] She played the violin, viola, and cello, before taking up playing the guitar when she was 14 years old.[14] She grew up listening to Alanis Morissette, Justin Bieber, and Brand New.[15][16] Throughout her childhood, her family moved frequently, as her parents worked many jobs. By the time she became a teenager, she had enrolled in six schools.[17] She was raised Catholic.[18]
Frangipane was bullied at school,[13][19][20] and her suicide attempt at the age of 17 led to her being hospitalized for nearly three weeks. Following this, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, with which her mother was also diagnosed.[21][22] She began using drugs soon after, saying her bipolar disorder caused her to become an "unconventional child".[17] When she was 17, she became romantically involved with a man who was 24 and resided near Halsey Street station in Brooklyn, from which she took her stage name. She said, "That's where I first start[ed] writing music and where I started to feel like I was a part of something bigger than my town in middle of nowhere New Jersey. Halsey is kind of like a manifestation of all the exaggerated parts of me, so it's like an alter ego."[23] In 2012, she graduated from Warren Hills Regional High School in Washington, New Jersey.[24]
After graduating, Frangipane enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design, but she withdrew due to financial hardship and instead attended community college.[10] She eventually dropped out of community college and was kicked out by her parents, who she said "just didn't agree with a lot of things about [her]". Soon after, she lived in a basement in Lower Manhattan with a group of "degenerate stoners" she knew through her then-boyfriend.[25] When she was not living there, she occasionally lived in one of New York's many homeless shelters, and she considered prostitution as a way to make money.[26][27] When describing this period of her life, she has said, "I remember one time I had $9 in my bank account, and bought a four-pack of Red Bull and used it to stay up overnight over the course of two or three days, because it was less dangerous to not sleep than it was to sleep somewhere random and maybe get raped or kidnapped." She would occasionally stay with her maternal grandmother during this time.[10]
Career
2012–2014: Career beginnings
Frangipane started writing music when she was 17, and in 2012, she began posting videos to social media sites such as YouTube and Kik, and in particular Tumblr, under the username se7enteenblack.[28] She became known for a parody of Taylor Swift's song "I Knew You Were Trouble", inspired by Swift's relationship with Harry Styles. She then wrote a follow-up song about their relationship, which was posted online in early 2013.[29][30] In early 2014, Frangipane went to a party and met a "music guy" who asked her to collaborate on a song with him because he liked her voice. The result, a song about her ex-boyfriend, titled "Ghost", was posted by Frangipane on SoundCloud several weeks after it was recorded. Within hours, the song gained online popularity and she was subsequently contacted by several record labels, with the song eventually charting and going on radio. She signed with Astralwerks, feeling that they gave her more creative freedom than other labels that contacted her.[10]
Following this, Frangipane played numerous acoustic shows in different cities under several stage names.[31] She chose Halsey as her permanent stage name because it is an anagram of her first name and is also a reference to the Halsey Street station of the New York City Subway in Brooklyn,[32] a place where she spent a lot of time as a teenager.[33] She also stated Halsey was the most popular name she used.[34] Having written poems for years, Halsey began writing more serious songs as a way to promote them. Music became her "confessional approach" and a form of therapy after the difficult life she had endured.[10]
Artistry
Influences
During Halsey's childhood, her mother listened to the Cure, Alanis Morissette, and Nirvana, while her father listened to the Notorious B.I.G., Slick Rick, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, and Tupac Shakur. She has said that their musical tastes have been a great influence on her.[33] She was "really influenced" by Matty Healy's lyrical approach stating: "His lyrical content is a lot of dialogue, a lot of places. It's very descriptive and it creates this honest, authentic image."[163][164]
In addition, she has called Panic! at the Disco the "band that changed [her] fucking life"[165] and credits Lady Gaga for giving her the strength to be herself.[166] She has also mentioned a Long Island rock band, Brand New, as both an influence and a favorite of hers, once changing her biography on Instagram to "The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me", a reference to their third album.[167] Halsey has cited Taylor Swift as a huge reason why she always insists on writing her own music.[168] Her other influences include Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix,[169] Christina Aguilera,[170] Marilyn Manson, Beck,[171] Kanye West,[172] Amy Winehouse,[173] the Weeknd,[174] Alex Turner,[175][176] Bright Eyes,[177] and the Wonder Years.[178]
Halsey credits Dolores O'Riordan as her major vocal influence, saying "Dolores O'Riordan was a massive influence for me. I grew up listening to the Cranberries with my mother and learned so much about having an unconventional singing voice. Dolores taught me how to use my voice in a manner that was emotive, even if I wasn't classically skilled... Her voice was beautiful to me. And she was a fierce badass trailblazing woman in the rock landscape... Always an inspiration to me...".[179]
The artist has said "There's plenty of musicians that I love and respect, but I think that I'm the most inspired by cinema."[180] Filmmakers who have influenced her include Quentin Tarantino, Harmony Korine, and Larry Clark.[180]
Music style and themes
Halsey is noted for her distinctive "indie" style of singing,[181][182] which has garnered controversial feedback.[183][184][185] She sings with an accent different from her speaking voice.[186] She is known as a pop,[187][188][189] electropop,[188][190][191][192] synth-pop,[193][194] art pop,[191] alternative pop,[192][195] alternative rock,[188] R&B,[187] indie pop, and alternative R&B artist.[196]
The New York Times' Jon Caramanica noted, "Halsey arrived as part of a slew of female pop rebels who emerged in the wake of Lorde's early-2010s recalibration of the genre's operating hierarchies."[197] When speaking of Badlands, Billboard stated, "Halsey's larger-than-life vision combines the synthy darkness of Lorde, the neon-pop chutzpah of Miley Cyrus and the flickering film noir of Lana Del Rey."[198]
Halsey's music focuses on her personal experiences and telling a story.[199] She writes about relationships with other women in her music as a way of solidifying her bisexuality.[200]
Videos and stage
The biggest influence on her live performances is Adam Lazzara, the frontman of Taking Back Sunday,[201] as she said, "One of the most inspiring things I've ever seen is watching [Taking Back Sunday] live and watching Adam use that microphone as a prop and I thought yep, I'm gonna do that."[177]
Activism
During the 2016 presidential election, Halsey was an avid supporter of Bernie Sanders and urged fans to vote for him.[224] In July 2016, she and 26 other artists were featured on the charity single "Hands", which was a tribute to the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.[62][63] During the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Halsey further endorsed Sanders on March 11, 2020, urging fans to vote for him via social media and a promotional video collaborating with the Sanders campaign.[225]
As a result of her own attempted suicide at age 17,[10][226] Halsey took part in the mental health and suicide prevention awareness campaign called "I'm Listening", which was hosted by radio network Entercom and broadcast live on September 10, 2017.[227]
Halsey identifies as a feminist.[217] Following the 2017 Women's March, she sent out a tweet that promised to donate one dollar to Planned Parenthood for every retweet it received.[228] She ended up donating $100,000 to the organization.[228] Halsey delivered a speech to more than 200,000 protesters at the 2018 Women's March.[229][230] Instead of a traditional speech, she performed a five-minute poem titled "A Story Like Mine", in which she told personal stories of sexual assault and violence throughout her life.[229] Her personal narrative included accompanying her best friend to Planned Parenthood after she had been raped, her personal account of sexual assault by neighbors and boyfriends, and women sexually assaulted by Olympic doctor Larry Nassar.[231] She completed her speech by requesting all—"Black, Asian, poor, wealthy, trans, cis, Muslim, Christian"—sexual assault victims to listen and support each other.[231] AJ Willingham of CNN opined in a headline that "Halsey's Women's March speech moved people around the world."[232] In March 2018, Halsey protested alongside numerous other celebrities at March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C.[233] In May 2018, she criticized Ivanka Trump over Twitter, complaining that she was too relaxed while her father, then-president Donald Trump, hurt immigrant children.[234]
In November 2018, Halsey performed at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show alongside numerous other artists,[235] but in December she criticised the company for its lack of inclusion of transgender models in its various shows, stating, "as a member of the LGBT+ community, I have no tolerance for a lack of inclusivity. Especially not motivated by stereotype."[236][237] Later that month, she performed her hit song "Without Me" on The Voice and was criticized for "sensually" dancing with backup dancer Jade Chynoweth. Many perceived the backlash as homophobic, including Halsey herself who defended the performance.[238][239] In a January 2019 interview with Glamour, she advocated for a stronger presence of women in music.[240] In April 2019, she and 29 other musical acts were featured on the charity single "Earth", which raises climate change awareness.[122] In May 2020, Halsey, alongside Yungblud, joined protests in Los Angeles for racial justice in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.[8]
In June 2020, she launched The Black Creators Fund, founded to provide financial support, resources, and a platform to black creators.[241]
Headlining
Co-headlining
Opening act
