Well, this explains "Lucky." If Halsey's Britney Spears-sampling single felt a little too derivative, at least there was a reason for it. Today, the pop star announced the title of their upcoming record: The Great Impersonator, billed as a "Confessional Concept Album." As it turns out, each track is meant to be a Halsey song from a different era—"Lucky," as you might imagine, was the entry from the early 2000s. And that's just the beginning.
The trailer for The Great Impersonator combines behind-the-scenes clips of Halsey recording the new album with images of her dressed up through the decades. "I really thought this album might be the last one I ever made. When you get sick like that, you start thinking about ways it could’ve all been different,” the singer, who recently revealed she was diagnosed with Lupus and a rare T-cell disorder, narrates the clip. "What if this isn't how it all went down? 18-year-old Ashley becomes Halsey in 2014. What if I debuted in the early 2000s? The ’90s? The ’80s? The ’70s? Am I still Halsey every time? In every timeline, do I still get sick? Do I become a mom? Am I happy? Lonely? Have I done enough? Have I told the truth?”
The Great Impersonator is Halsey's fifth studio album, following 2021's If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power. That record, made in collaboration with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails, was heavily influenced by Halsey's impending motherhood and serves as a reflection on pregnancy. This album is a reflection on illness, as evidenced by the first song they released, "The End": "Every couple of years now, a doctor says I'm sick/Pulls out a brand new bag of tricks, and then they lay it on me," the track opens.
Of course, reflecting on illness begets reflecting on mortality—and as Halsey admits in the trailer, she was sick enough to think this could've been her final album. Thankfully, their health conditions "are currently being managed or in remission," as they shared on social media earlier this year, but the experience has understandably influenced their art. “I spent half my life being someone else," Halsey says in the trailer. "I never stopped to ask myself, if it all ended right now, is this a person you’d be proud to leave behind? Is it even you?”
