We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of Halsey’s latest album, The Great Impersonator. The project was Halsey’s first full-length release with Columbia Records, but she appears to be frustrated with the label.
In a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Lowe called Halsey a “career artist” and she responded, “I hope I get to be.” Lowe then wondered who’s stopping her from doing that and after a shrug, she replied, “I can’t make an album right now. I can’t make an album right now. I’m not allowed to. I can’t make an album right now.”
Lowe said he didn’t “like the sound of that” and Halsey continued:
“Yeah, well it’s the reality. Because The Great Impersonator didn’t perform the way they thought it was going to. And if I’m being honest with you, the album sold 100,000 f*ckin’ copies first week. That’s a pretty big first week, especially for an artist who hasn’t had a hit in a long time. The tour is the highest-selling tour of my entire career. But, they want Manic numbers from me. Everyone wants Manic numbers from me. I can’t do that every single time. It should be good enough I do it once in a while. But it’s not, it’s not.
And what would be considered a success for most artists, a success story… 100,000 albums first week, in an era where we don’t sell physical music, OK? With no radio hit, nothing. But it’s a failure in the eyes of, you know… in the context of the kind of success that I’ve had previously. And that’s the hardest part, I think, of having been a pop star once, is because I’m not one anymore, but I’m being compared to numbers and to other people that I don’t consider lateral to me.”
Halsey’s 2020 album Manic is the one that produced the No. 1 single “Without Me.” The biggest chart success from The Great Impersonator, meanwhile, was “Lucky,” which peaked at No. 88 on the Hot 100. Both Manic and The Great Impersonator peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
Watch the full interview above.