Halsey

Halsey captured the angst of chronically online Tumblr teenagers when she graced their dashboards in the mid 2010s with her mix of covers and infectious, alternative pop music.

Born Ashley Frangipane, the singer started to gain an audience online after she uploaded YouTube videos of herself performing songs. By the time they were 17, Frangipane took inspiration from her Brooklyn escapades and began using the Halsey Street subway stop as their stage name. Halsey is also an anagram for Ashley. In 2014, when she was 20, Halsey released “Ghost” on Soundcloud to a flood of online frenzy that kickstarted her music career. The following year, Halsey dropped their first LP, Badlands, which debuted at Number Two on the Billboard 200 album chart, and marked her as a hitmaker of the blogging era.

During the summer of 2016, the alternative pop artist received their first Number One hit with The Chainsmokers’ single “Closer,” which she cowrote and was featured on. Subsequently, Halsey’s sophomore album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom was filled with pop-heavy tracks. Since then, the singer has produced radio-friendly music with an alternative rock-infused edge and continued to relentlessly share intimate details of her life in her songs. In 2019, Halsey dominated the airwaves once again with break-up anthem “Without Me” and received her first solo Number One song before releasing their third album Manic in 2020. Halsey leaned into rock influences for her fourth album If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power, which was produced by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Halsey’s fifth album The Great Impersonator is set to release October 25. — Maya Georgi