Taking the title of her album, The Great Impersonator, quite literally, Halsey released 18 spot-on superstar impersonations in the rollout to the project’s release.
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“Impersonating a different icon every day and teasing a snippet of the song they inspired,” Day-by-day Halsey previewed what would combine to make the “confessional concept album” that sees the musician explore herself and her musical identity through the lens of different time periods, as if she were an artist during the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s.
Within The Great Impersonator, officially out now, Halsey, confessing she has no idea who she is anymore, traverses from different personas and timelines to unpack her autobiography, in hopes of coming to an understanding, and finding her true identity.
Very open about her health troubles with lupus and T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder, the album’s tracklist filled with rage and depression in seemingly every stripped-down, raw emotion that has Haley contemplating who she can trust, fantasizing about death, and grappling with her love/hate relationship with fame. Wondering who she might have turned into, if she’d become Halsey in a different time and place.
In celebration of the album’s arrival, let’s run through Halsey’s countdown posts cosplaying 18 musical icons, and listen to which song on the album they inspired.
DAY 1 — Dolly Parton — TRACK 9: Hometown
DAY 2 — PJ Harvey — TRACK 3: Dog Years
DAY 3 — Kate Bush — TRACK 10: I Never Loved You
DAY 4 — Cher — TRACK 4: Letter to God (1974)
DAY 5 — David Bowie — TRACK 11: Darwinism
DAY 6 — Amy Lee — TRACK 12: Lonely is the Muse
DAY 7 — Dolores O’Riordan — TRACK 2: Ego
DAY 8 — Stevie Nicks — TRACK 5: Panic Attack
DAY 9 — Bruce Springsteen — TRACK 8: Letter to God (1983)
DAY 10 — Linda Ronstadt — TRACK 7: I Believe in Magic
DAY 11 — Britney Spears — TRACK 16: Lucky
DAY 12 — Badlands Halsey, circa 2015 — TRACK 15: Hurt Feelings
DAY 13 — Aaliyah — TRACK 17: Letter to God (1998)
DAY 14 — Joni Mitchell — TRACK 6: The End
DAY 15 — Fiona Apple — TRACK 13: Arsonist
DAY 16 — Tori Amos — TRACK 14: Life of the Spider (Draft)
DAY 17 — Björk — TRACK 18: The Great Impersonator
DAY 18 — Marilyn Monroe — TRACK 1: The Only Living Girl in LA