Halsey’s ‘If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’ Album Released
Halsey has officially dropped her new album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power via Capitol Records.
Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross executive produced the 13-track project, and earlier this week, the Oscar- and Grammy-winners announced the special guests featured on it: Dave Grohl, Fleetwood Mac‘s Lindsey Buckingham, The Bug’s Kevin Martin, Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio, Pino Palladino, Karriem Riggins and Meat Beat Manifesto. On the opening tracks, they create a psychedelic Gothic fairytale—wisps of wind, icy piano, panoramic synth blur, a churning undercurrent listed in the credits as a “menacing beat”—while Halsey sings about loneliness and crowns and Judas (“Jesus needed a three-day weekend/To sort out all his bullshit”), but mostly about a pervasive sense of doom. “Don’t wait for me,” they cry over the chaos, “it’s not a happy ending.” Reznor and Ross spend most of the album experimenting, careening through genres and hinting at a danger that’s never fully realized. They cram songs with texture, reverberating screams and screeching sirens; the busyness can feel like a distraction. The sound is sometimes abrasive, but rarely shocking. The rollicking “honey” oscillates between frenetic drums and guitar, with Dave Grohl behind the kit and a cyborg inflection that leaks in from hyperpop. “I’ve been corrupted,” Halsey sings on “Lilith,” and a spasm of glitch submerges the last note.
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia
There is an hour long film accompanying the album. The film was written by Halsey and directed by Colin Tilley. It premiered on 25th August and will have its global theatrical release on 28th August.
Image Courtesy: Halsey Fandom Wiki
According to Billboard reports, the If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power album artwork depicts the regal-looking “Castle” singer sitting on a Game of Thrones-like golden throne and holding a baby (not their newborn) on their lap while exposing their breast, serving as a nod to the Madonna-whore psychological complex of how women are perceived as either motherly figures whose bodies are vessels for childbearing or sexual beings. In the caption of the Instagram post, the 26-year-old artist explains how they believe both ideas “can co-exist peacefully and powerfully.”
Image Courtesy: Allure
Halsey also described the album as being “a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth. It was very important to me that the cover art conveyed the sentiment of my journey over the past few months.”
Listen to If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power below:
-Aditi
