The Three Faces of Halsey

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Halsey’s album “Manic” was released Jan. 17 and its 15 new songs such as “Graveyard,” “Killing boys” and “3am,” give fans an amazing feeling of what internal struggles people face while being in a relationship.

The singer wanted an album where she could showcase her true self, her third face and not just Halsey and Ashley, the face “that exists in the cracks between the two, the most carnal, uninhibited, explicit flash of color and light hiding in the center of my chest.”  

In September the singer revealed that “Manic” is the album that serves as a tribute to her true self, beneath the Halsey stage name. As she expresses in her song “Ashely,” which is tilted after her real name, this song expressed her true self and how she wanted to break away from the more scripted role she had been putting on for her fans, with her lyrics like “somehow I’m bursting out of myself.” 

At the same time, she revealed the first set dates for her Manic tour that begins on June 2 in Seattle, Washington. Halsey will also be at Dos Equis pavillion in Dallas, Texas June 15.  

Unlike her last two albums, “Badlands” and “Hopeless Fountain Kingdom,” this album doesn’t  follow a storyline. Instead, “Manic” shows Halsey’s experience going through a manic episode. Halsey has spoken openly about being diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 17, a disorder that causes people to experience severe mood swings ranging from mania to depression.

She told Rolling Stone magazine that her “Manic” album is the first time she made while going through mania rather than a depressive episode. As said in an interview with Rolling Stone, Halsey has described the mania that she experiences as “that thing in the back of our minds that drives us to outrageous thoughts like [she mimes suddenly cutting over the wheel], or you’re on top of a building, and you’re like what if I just jumped?” she said. “You are controlled by those impulses rather than reason or logic.”

All the songs in “Manic” take a more serious tone that people can relate to better than her previous albums talking about topics like not feeling like you don’t deserve to be loved and trying to love yourself like you love others. With her lyrics like, “I know I love you, but I’m still learning to love myself,” and “What am I thinking? What does this mean? How could somebody ever love me?”       

Halsey’s song, “Graveyard” that was released back in September, took a more serious tone expressing things like how far you’ll go for someone you love no matter what may happen to you in return. The album touches a lot on the fact that Halsey struggles to love herself like she loves others because she only knows how to love someone so much. 

The album as a whole does represent a completely different side Halsey that we haven’t really got to hear in her music or see on stage before. She is expressing a more variable side of herself that allows her fans to get to know her in a completely new light. The album is definitely something that is more personal and real with the fans by expressing such personal and vulnerable sides of herself.