Artists Mentioned Atticus Ross
Halsey
Nine Inch Nails
Trent Reznor
This story leads Billboard ’s 2022 Grammy Preview issue , highlighting the artists, issues and trends that will define awards season.
Halsey is quick.Quick to joke about their New Jersey accent slipping out after a few drinks.Quick to flip into scholar mode, explaining that one of their new songs is named after Biblical Adam’s forgotten first wife, Lilith, who was jettisoned from Eden for daring to enjoy sex.Quick to share how, as a kid, she had to pay for school lunches with dollar bills so worn out they felt like “old T-shirts.” And amid all this, Halsey is quick to soothe infant son Ender Ridley Aydin when he makes his presence known from the next room, bouncing him up and down and cooing him back to sleep, whether decked out in spiky Mad Max leather or David Bowie glam effulgence for today’s photo shoot.
When it came to one lifelong goal, however, Halsey (whose pronouns are “she” and “they”) took their time.
Although Halsey has drawn on Nine Inch Nails ’ throbbing, disquieting industrial-electronic sonic palette since her 2015 debut, Badlands (and more recently on the blatant NIN pastiche “Nightmare,” a stand-alone single from 2019), she waited years before approaching active NIN band members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross with a pitch to work together.
When a staffer at Capitol Records pointed out the two acts were labelmates and offered to make introductions, however, it provided the push Halsey needed.“I was thinking, ‘Ugh, I don’t want it to be some corporate, ‘Hello, would you please be interested in working with our young pop star?’ ” recalls Halsey, adopting a bland affect.“So I wrote them a letter and just kissed their asses as much as I possibly could…and crossed my fingers that they would even respond.”
It worked.
Reznor and Ross are now the producers of Halsey’s fourth album, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power , though as they sit together in a Los Angeles warehouse studio, it’s clear they’ve also become mentors who can offer creative input as well as a road map to what life as a successful musician and parent can look like.“They gave me a lot of advice that I needed when I was pregnant,” says Halsey.
“It really comforted me to know that I can be a good parent and still do the thing that I love and do it with [as much] involvement and dedication as they do.”
Austin Hargrave Styling by Law Roach.Richard Quinn jacket and bodysuit, Alexander McQueen boots, Loree Rodkin jewelry.
Over the last 11 years, that work ethic has proved transformative for Reznor and Ross, who’ve built a parallel career as prolific composers for TV and film, and in the process made the unlikely leap from enigmatic alt-rock icons to awards darlings.Since their surprise best original score Academy Award win for The Social Network in 2011, the duo has won a Grammy (best score soundtrack for visual media) for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in 2013, nabbed a primetime Emmy in 2020 with harrowing music for HBO’s Watchmen and just this year netted another Oscar (alongside Jon Batiste) for scoring Pixar’s Soul .Amid all that, they entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of Nine Inch Nails.(With the band, Reznor has won an additional two Grammys for best metal performance, in 1993 and 1996.)
Making this album with Halsey is the latest step in their creative evolution, and one that both say has made them true fans of the 27-year-old singer-songwriter.“I f–king love this record,” says Ross.“The one thing that we didn’t change was any lyrics or melody.
I can listen to the album and get lost on an emotional level.”
“We’re always looking for things that make us feel inspired and less cynical,” adds Reznor.“We came out the other end changed, in a good way, and revitalized.
It has been invigorating and inspiring, and I can tell you we both needed it, just with what the world has been like the last couple of years.”
Austin Hargrave Styling by Mark Holmes.
Ross wears a Saint Laurent jacket.Halsey’s team at Capitol is hoping this album will make fans of the Recording Academy, too.Thus far, voters have seldom recognized Halsey, and only for their work on other artists’ releases — in 2017, Halsey’s feature on The Chainsmokers’ Billboard Hot 100 No.1 smash, “Closer,” was up for best pop duo/group performance, and their contribution to Justin Bieber’s Purpose album meant they were up for album of the year — despite the fact that over the past six years, she has proved to be one of pop’s most reliable (and commercially viable) vanguards.Halsey has earned 7.5 million equivalent album units in the United States, according to MRC Data (for the Billboard 200 No.1 Hopeless Fountain Kingdom and three No.2 releases on the chart), and 21 Hot 100 entries, among them six top 10s and a solo No.
1, “Without Me.” In 2019, the Songwriters Hall of Fame honored Halsey with its Hal David Starlight Award, recognizing “gifted songwriters …making a significant impact” with their original work.
Last November, Halsey addressed the latest perceived snub (when the Grammy nominations did not include Manic or its singles) on Instagram, with words both measured and unfiltered.“The Grammys are an elusive process.It can often be about behind the scenes private performances, knowing the right people, campaigning through the grapevine, with the right handshake and ‘bribes’ that can be just ambiguous enough to pass as ‘not bribes,’ ” they wrote.“While I am THRILLED for my talented friends who were recognized this year, I am hoping for more transparency or reform.But I’m sure this post will blacklist me anyway.”
The Recording Academy has, in fact, reformed its procedures in the interim, disbanding its nominations-review committees in late April.Now, a wider swath of Grammy voters has the final word in all non-craft categories; it remains to be seen, when the nominations are announced Nov.
23, whether these changes will work in Halsey’s favor.
“It would be a disservice for the Academy and our business not to recognize an artist that has the ability, the wherewithal and the guts to constantly change who they are and to never be constrained by what one believes is commercial,” says Capitol COO Michelle Jubelirer, who is part of the team that signed Halsey to Astralwerks in 2014 and helped develop their career as the artist was upped to the Capitol roster.(Universal Music Group owns both labels.) “Halsey is completely unafraid.They made a statement album that shows they are a career artist.” The label is particularly hoping to see the album compete in the alternative category.
Austin Hargrave Reznor wears a Tom Ford jacket.If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is certainly Halsey’s most ambitious project yet.A concept album about pregnancy, fear, mortality and acceptance that backs up its cinematic scope (a companion film written by and starring Halsey is streaming on HBO Max) with vivid lyrical nuance and sinuous industrial grooves, it’s already earning Halsey the best reviews of their career (including raves from longtime skeptics).With Reznor and Ross lending their unimpugnable rock cred, this may finally be the album that forces the Recording Academy to take notice.
“Halsey has gigantic hit records, they have the numbers, the following, the sales, but at the end of the day, when you distill what Halsey is, she’s a conceptual album artist and a songwriter,” says Capitol executive vp A&R Jeremy Vuernick, who has worked with Halsey since 2014.“It was a fairy-tale scenario.
It was a team effort to make it happen, but it stems from Halsey as a songwriter — and [Reznor and Ross] saw genius in that.”
At the very least, the process has upended one of the pop star’s preconceived notions about the industry.When reminded that they sang, “Don’t meet your heroes/They’re all f–king weirdos” on 2020’s Manic , Halsey just laughs, then says: “Thank God this experience has proven me wrong.”
Austin Hargrave Piers Atkinson hat, L.A.Roxx catsuit, Christian Cowan dress, Loree Rodkin jewelry.Austin Hargrave CONG TRI jacket and pants, Loree Rodkin jewelry.How much of the album was ready before Trent and Atticus got involved?
Halsey: I started working on If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power about six months after the release of my third album, Manic .I had convinced myself when I finished that record that I wasn’t going to write any more music for a really long time.
[But] as soon as I got home, at the start of the pandemic, I was right back in the studio.
Originally, I wanted to make an album that was darker, more conceptual— kind of a reattempt of doing my debut album.I made Badlands when I was 19 and I didn’t have much experience with songwriting or in life, so while it was a valiant effort, it didn’t quite have the depth that I thought that I could bring to a record if I reapproached the same kind of mindset.
I had quite a few songs done, rough demos, and it was all coming together in this really narrative way right around the time I found out that I was pregnant.So I had this nightmarish, dark album, and I wanted to share it with the world in a way that was really compelling and visceral.Obviously, the first people I thought to call were Trent and Atticus.
You have wanted to work with them for some time.What finally gave you the courage to ask?
Halsey: I had been basically poorly plagiarizing their work forever.Every single time I started an album, I thought, “Well, maybe this will be the one.” But imposter syndrome is huge, and I didn’t think they had any idea who I was.It turns out they didn’t, but that’s OK.
This time, I thought I had something special.For people who have been in the business as long as they have and been so successful, I thought maybe it was a fresh narrative: “Hey, this is a body horror album about pregnancy.Have you done that before?” People for a long time [said], “Well, the worst thing they could say is no,” and I was like, “Exactly — ‘no’ would crush me.”.
