ALBUM REVIEW | Halsey – The Great Impersonator

The Great Impersonator, the latest offering from New Jersey-native singer-songwriter Halsey is an emotionally-charged exploration through illness, betrayal, anger and love, offering listeners something that feels both like a farewell and a revelation. 

From the get-go, Halsey made it very clear that her newest effort, The Great Impersonator, was going to be a “confessional concept album,” retracing the life and almost death of Ashley Frangipane. And although each of the 18 tracks on the album draws inspiration from a vast variety of musical icons from the 70s up to the 2000s, The Great Impersonator is far from your typical tribute album.

The newest record showcases the most open, vulnerable, and authentic version of the singer, a very raw version of them who didn’t know whether or not they were going to make it out alive after being diagnosed with lupus and a rare T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder in 2022.

Navigating through the disease and into her most personal experiences, the artist penned a tribute album to her family and friends, a goodbye letter that transcends genres and is as complex as it is sincere.

Whether you’re a long-time fan or new to her music, this album promises an unforgettable journey through life and death.

Halsey – The Great Impersonator Track by Track

Opening with the 6-minute-long “Only Girl in LA,” The Great Impersonator kicks off with a soft, acoustic vibe, as the singer recounts the hardships she’s faced in the last few years. However, fans of the artist will tell you that it’s not a Halsey album if it sticks to only one genre, and TGI is no different. The last minute of the track switches from acoustic to heavy synths, drums, and electric guitar, setting Halsey’s clear intention to blend genres in the same way she had done on her last effort If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. The following tracks, “Ego” and “Dog Years,” fall more into the pop-punk genre, the latter serving as both a tribute to the artist’s dog who passed away in 2022, but also as a metaphor as Halsey sings “I’ve been a really good dog, can I come inside?”. “Letter to God (1974),” the first of three in the record, takes a slower, more vulnerable approach as it evokes the artist’s first encounter with leukemia in the form of a little boy she used to go to school with at age 5. This vulnerability also drips into the following track, the Stevie Nicks-inspired “Panic Attack,” in which the singer contrasts a rather calm beat with themes of love and anxiety.

The multi-threat wraps up the first third of the record with one of the most emotional tracks of the project, “The End,” which was the first song released off the record, back when the singer publicly announced her latest health issues.

The Great Impersonator showcases Halsey’s evolution as an artist but also as a person, with tracks like “I Believe in Magic” reflecting on the artist’s journey into motherhood and featuring voice recordings from her mother and her son. The next “Letter to God (1983)” sees the singer getting a whole new perspective on life, and regretting the moment she envied her 5-year-old classmate. Now experiencing the same disease, the singer switches her discourse from “Please God, I wanna be sick,” to “Please God, I don’t wanna be sick”.

For the ninth track of the record, “Hometown”, Halsey dives into a country-er sound, channeling her inner Dolly Parton as she sings about long-gone high school days before moving on to themes of love and betrayal in the metaphorical “I Never Loved You.”

Kicking off the second half of the record, “Darwinism” goes back to a slower piano voice sound as the artist speaks on neurodivergence and mental health through difficult times.

Through haunting vocals, scratching guitar and minimalist instrumentation the second single, “Lonely is the Muse“, touches on the importance of loneliness for artists during a creative process and the emotional burden of being seen more as just a “muse” rather than a full person.

“Arsonist” is one of the darkest-sounding tracks of the record, yet offering some of the most interesting lyrics. When asked about the track, Halsey shared:

“It had a couple different iterations and it was sounding quite the way I wanted it to and I went in one night with Michael Uzi (Frank Ocean, SZA, Beyoncé) […] and we redid the entire song top to bottom, new vocals, everything, in like 30 minutes […] and it ended up being so good that after months of working on this song, this version we made 30 minutes is the one that ended up on the record and now it’s one of my favorites.”

Lyrically speaking, “Life of the Spider” is, in our opinion, the epitome of fear and vulnerability, making it the most heartbreaking song of all. Over a simple piano, Halsey compares the way she was treated during her sickness and treatment to the way most humans react to spiders in their home: with anger and disgust. “I’m minding my own business but my presence makes you curse / I should be getting better but I’m only getting worse,” the singer shakily sings in the chorus.

As if she was resetting her life, the following track “Hurt Feelings,” is sonically very similar to the work found on the artist’s debut full-length album, Badlands (2015). A sweet little treat for fans who have been following her career since the beginning, “Hurt Feelings” is meant to show how much Halsey, the stage persona, has influenced Ashley, the human being, over the last decade.

The first official single from the record, “Lucky,” is also a testimony of Halsey’s influences. Sampling Britney Spears’ 2000 homonymous hit and Monica’s 1997 “Angel of Mine”, the song is an honest account of the singer’s experiences with motherhood, relationships, and sickness.

The third and last “Letter to God (1998)” is not so much a letter to God as it is a letter to the person who taught Halsey true love: her son, Ender Ridley. The track opens with a sweet conversation between the artist and her “baby boy,” who excitedly claims that “mommy” is his favorite singer. Although the choice of including the only person who grounded her, and who showed her pure, unfiltered love during the hardest time of her life in her goodbye letter seemed like a no-brainer, you can tell, as the singer repeatedly begs God not to be sick anymore, just how badly the fear of having to abandon her 3-year-old hit them.

Closing with the title track, Halsey writes a bittersweet goodbye to her fans impersonating Björk’s music style. The song delves into her struggles with maintaining her public figure, and her fear of being remembered only as Halsey, rather than Ashley. The album closes with a genuine thank you letter, acknowledging her supporters while showing how difficult the journey has been.

The Influences in The Great Impersonator

During the album rollout, Halsey took to her social media daily to impersonate and pay tribute to eighteen artists, by recreating some iconic photoshoots.

Bruce Springsteen, Marilyn Monroe, Tori Amos, Björk, Joni Mitchell, Aaliyah, Britney Spears, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, Stevie Nicks, Dolores O’Riordan, Amy Lee, David Bowie, Cher, Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, Fiona Apple and circa-2015 Halsey were all impersonated by the singer, who shared every day the little ways in which they all influenced the new record.

Halsey showcasing her incredible transformation and artistic skills is nothing new to her seasoned fans, who have for instance previously seen her reveal one of her album covers by painting it live during a 8-hour livestream. However, if The Great Impersonator had been the artist’s last record, its rollout, artistic direction and content would have been a perfect testimony, for fans old and new, of the artist’s overall talent and versatility.