It blew up in his face in the late-’90s, when he was tapped to assist with recording Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar after signing the band to his Nothing Records, which had put out the debut, Portrait of an American Family, before it. Trent Reznor doesn’t often endeavor to produce whole albums for other artists. This is also an unusual moment for Reznor and Ross, Golden Globe– and Academy Award–winning film-score legends who, since 2016, compose the core of Nine Inch Nails, industrial-rock institution whose fearless exploration of the darkness in Reznor’s life and whose perfect balance of beautiful melodies and abrasive sonic textures yielded classics like “Hurt,” “The Day the World Went Away,” and “The Hand That Feeds.”
The small print said more, touting production from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, a good get for Halsey, who entrusted the sound of her earlier albums to a cadre of pop, rock, and hip-hop maestros, including Greg Kurstin (Foo Fighters, Sia, Beck), Ricky Reed (Lizzo, Kesha, twenty one pilots), and their ex-boyfriend Lido (Jaden Smith, Chance the Rapper, Chika), though some of Manic is self-produced. Two weeks prior, billboards touting new music sprung up in major cities, a callback to the lengthy stretch of 20 when Badlands was advertised with wall murals and billboards around Williamsburg, Brooklyn, since “Halsey” is a street in Kings County as much as it’s an anagram for “Ashley.” Black and white with a blood-red stripe down the middle, the new billboards announced the name of the fourth Halsey album - If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power - one that would forego the protracted campaigns of singles and videos heralding Halsey albums in the past. She started seeing screenwriter Alev Aydin the couple’s first child, a boy named Ender Ridley (who absolutely must grow up loving sci-fi), was born in mid-July, a windfall in a harrowing journey with endometriosis. Since the last album, Halsey is changing, in art and in life outside it.
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After working through trap-pop vibes and heartbreaking life changes on 2017’s Hopeless Fountain Kingdom - the Reputation to Badlands’ 1989, in a way - Halsey stepped her game up on last year’s Manic, a more assured collection full of lacerating honesty about the highs and lows of bipolar disorder but too stuffed with songs and ideas that didn’t complement each other. On 2015’s Badlands, their debut album, Halsey was hit-or-miss, though, always in lock step with the sound of the middle of the decade - recall the slippery EDM hybridization of Taylor Swift’s 1989, or the hip-hop-tinged torch songs of Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die, or the tense synth-rock of Night Visions–era Imagine Dragons - but not always as pointed and confident as the defiant (if cloying) millennial anthem “New Americana.” The style was there the substance could use a bit of fine-tuning, a classic Tumblr dilemma. Halsey, who uses she/they pronouns, became active in fan communities for pop-rock acts like One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer and released songs of her own, covers and originals revealing an expressive singing voice and a keen sense of what’s percolating in pop. There, the singer, born Ashley Frangipane of Middlesex County in North Jersey, spoke with brutal honesty about struggles stemming from having a Black father and white mother about being bisexual about body issues whatever felt pressing and important. This was the era where Drake frequented Blogspot, and the Weeknd dropped songs anonymously on YouTube Tyler, the Creator would answer probing inquiries on the early question-and-answer site Formspring and A$AP Mob and Halsey tightened up aesthetics on Tumblr. Halsey leapt from internet renown to genuine pop stardom at a moment when the barriers separating IRL and URL fame began to crumble, and it became possible to jump-start a music career by force of not just talent but also the maintenance of a cool and intriguing internet presence. And the Nine Inch Nails guys seem anxious to get out of their own comfort zones with Halsey in tow.
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