Her name is Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, but you will know her as Halsey. She’s 21 years old and killing the music industry right now! With a sell-out tour all over Europe and America, and her first album breaking the Top 10, if you haven’t already heard of Halsey, you certainly will soon.
We think Halsey’s an absolutely stunning woman, who looks impeccably dressed at every event and picture-perfect for every Instagram snap. She changes her hair colour every few months or so, but most people will recognise her for her ‘Smurf blue’ or white-blonde pixie cut. She dresses like she writes: dark and grungy with an artistic flair.
Halsey grew up in Washington, New Jersey and, with an Italian-American mother and African-American father, music had always been at the forefront of her life. At the age of 18 she moved to Brooklyn and desperately tried to make music her main focus and her way to make money. It was in Brooklyn where she came up with her alter-ego ‘Halsey’ – not only is it an anagram of her name, Ashley, but it’s also the name of the street that she lived on.
Since the age of 16, Halsey has suffered from bipolar disorder, but she doesn’t want to identified by that; she doesn’t like to talk about it, but it is very clear in her music that she’s dealing with it. Halsey, who identifies as bisexual, is pro gender equality and we admire her fierce devotion to such causes.
Halsey’s first real song, Ghost, wasn’t released on YouTube until 2014, but that’s what got her noticed. She was then signed to a record label, and that’s when Halsey finally came alive. The star is huge on social media – at this year’s SXSW, she was announced as one of the most mentioned people on Twitter – and she boasts over a million followers on each of her social media accounts. So it’s safe to say that her fans are crazy about her, then! She’s gained even more followers lately after Justin Bieber released his new album last week, featuring Halsey on one of the tracks.
She released her album Badlands back in August, to much praise. A neurotic, dystopian concept album inspired by sinful hubs like Las Vegas – with plenty of sex and drugs thrown in for good measure – Badlands crosses various musical genres, but would probably best be described as electro-pop-alternative-grunge. The whole album sees Halsey reflect on who she is as a person, dealing with many struggles and troubling thoughts. Tracks like New Americana reveal her musical inspirations (“…raised on Biggie and Nirvana”) and touch on issues like same-sex marriage and cannabis legalisation. Hold Me Down, meanwhile, is an eerie, ballad-style number with beautiful strings – with lyrics like “…he’s got me down on both knees / but it’s the devil that’s trying to hold me down,” it becomes clear that Halsey’s dealing with sexuality and sadness more than anything.
She’s fast becoming one of the most exciting women in music and in no doubt will break the fashion industry soon. Keep an eye on Halsey – she’s going to be big.
