Halsey

Ashley Frangipane was born September 29, 1994 in Edison, New Jersey. At age 18 she made an anagram of her first name to form her stage name Halsey, and began a career that made her an indie-inflected synth-heavy pop star. She began performing in clubs to pay her rent and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder just a year before. She posted videos of herself performing covers on YouTube, famously her rendition of Taylor Swift's “I Knew You Were Trouble”. She recorded her first original song, “Ghost”, in 2014 and got herself a record deal with Astralwerks. Her debut EP Room 93 was released soon after and she embarked on a tour with indie band The Kooks. The following year she supported Imagine Dragons on their Smoke + Mirrors tour and recorded her debut full-length album Badlands. Her second album, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, was released in 2017, with its lead single “Now Or Never” reaching number 11 in the mainstream Billboard Charts. She had a cameo role in A Star Is Born in 2018 before releasing the single “Without Me”, which became her first number 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100. In January 2020 Halsey released her third studio album, Manic; the singles “Nightmare” and “Graveyard” preceded it the previous year. She turned to award-winning producers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross as collaborators for her 2021 album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, an album that scored strong reviews and her fourth straight album to reach the top 2 in America. It proved an international smash going top 10 in numerous countries including Australia, Belgium, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Norway and others. Working with producers such as Alex G and Greg Kurstin, her fifth studio album, The Great Impersonator, came out in 2024.