The Chaos of the Mind
“I'm well acquainted with villains that live in my head” (Control)
By: Lena Muzelle
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Imagine your angsty fourteen year old self walking to school in the city, on a route that only you know about. Picture blasting music through your old beat up headphones and knowing every lyric to the songs you start every morning with. The music you imagine could be Mac Miller, Radiohead, or Nirvana. For me that music was the entire Badlands album by Halsey. This album was released on August 28th, 2015. It has it’s very own strong opinions about media and people that exist within the medium that is music and Hollywood. The album goes into depth about Ashley Nicolette Frangipane's life from front to back while touching on her personal struggles and moments of bliss. (Ashley is Halsey's real name.) This form of media is not as commonly seen today where artists put together an array of songs that make sense within each other and form one big story. Generally speaking modern artists put multiple singles in an album that have a similar tune. Media is so strongly impactful to so many people and with some forms you are aware that you relate to it on multiple in depth levels while some media impacts you in ways you are completely unaware of. This intermittent consciousness when consuming all forms of media depends on both the type of media and our mental patterns. Music tends to be more of a conscious intake. When this album first came out it was very popular amongst middle and high school age girls. It’s supposed to be a "angry female record" (qtd in Graves) that empowers and angers the listeners. Badlands by Halsey is about her freedom from male expectations, as well as her freedom to be herself. She uses escapism to depict the physical place that is the badlands and this is her mental prison that she escapes to from her frustrating and traumatizing reality.
The Halsey album has 16 songs and they all tell one story. The album is about her mindset at the time of the album and how her chaotic past and present were impacting her mental health. Badlands refers to the way that she feels stuck both in her own head and in her hometown. The Badlands keep you contained where you cannot escape and leaves you feeling trapped in these patterns and places. As Halsey says in one of the songs “My mind's like a deadly disease” (Control) This lyric set is about how her mind is dangerous to her and the Badlands that she is escaping to is uninhabitable as well as terrifying. The entire concept of the Badlands is about Halsey's mindset and the location in which she experienced things mentally. She viewed the Badlands as both a prison and an escape. This escape for her starts off in the album as a booming city that sweeps you in a vast expanse. This city is painful but freeing and in time she decides to leave the city to go to the outskirts of the Badlands. The outskirts is where most of the album is based and this is where she experiences the desolate wasteland that is around the Badlands. This is a alliteration to her feelings of loneliness and in some songs the empowerment that comes with being single and on your own.
When I was fourteen I struggled a lot with bullying and feeling trapped in my own head as so many people do. This album was all I listened to because I related so deeply to the lyrics. Through my own personal struggles I found that this music has such depth within it's levels and while Halsey created the music to depict her personal issues and vendettas my personal takeaway was one of strength and power. I felt like I found something in her music that made me feel strong enough in myself to go to school everyday with the same people that made me feel weak. I found power within myself and had lots of positive experiences throughout the year that I could dedicate to this album. While Halsey definitely ran from her issues into the Badlands she created a version of it that other people could escape to as well. I really appreciated having the Badlands at points in my life that felt surreal and too large to experience all at once. This feeling of things happening around you and out of your control is I believe the very feeling that she was trying to encapsulate when she said "I'm bigger than my body, I'm colder than this home." (Control) I still listen to her new music but I don't think anything else could measure up to Badlands.
Badlands shows it’s feminist ideology in songs like “Castle” and “Hurricane”. Predominantly this album is about female empowerment and women being strong without the need for a man at their side. This album has aspects that show the devilish side of Hollywood. In “Castle” one of the lines is “there's an old man sitting on the throne saying I should probably keep pretty my mouth shut.” (Castle) This topic is more specifically about the men in Hollywood and their abuse of power towards her. She shares her frustration and anger towards the industry as well as her personal relationships with her parents and her romantic relationships all throughout the sixteen songs in the album. The album portrays her empowerment with her singing very sensual, sexual lyrics while also being in control of her body. Slut-shaming is an example of a way that men try to control women's bodies. Halsey asserts her independence by fending off slut-shamers and societal beauty standards. She struggles with people on the internet and hate comments as much as any other celebrity. Her outfits and dancing have been called out so many times for being “slutty” that she acually mentioned the comments in an interview. (qtd in Graves) In the interview she talks about the double standard put on female artists to be less sexual than male artists because if they have any sexuality in their art or personal presentation they will undoubtably be objectified as a result.
This 2015 album by Halsey is a form of escapism for her, along with her listeners. She created this album to show that she was in a “desolate place in her lonely mind” (qtd in Goner). It was created to allow listeners to feel as though they were able to walk through this story, but also depict Halsey’s feminine energy in the form of an angry alternative set of songs. In her interview she talks about her connections between the songs along with her personal opinions about the album as a whole. Halsey even states that the music is a form of escapism (qtd in Graves). Halsey’s form of escapism comes in present, past, and future going down the songs in the album. For example the connection between “New Americana” and “Roman Holiday” talk about her childhood and parents whereas “Drive” and “Colors” are her current life and relationships. Drive is also the first and only “happy” song on the album where she decides to leave the badlands. She explores the future in “Castle” and “Hold me Down” while she speaks mainly about her career and anger. In the location that is Badlands, this fictional area that exists in her mind, the inhabitants are trapped and living in a desert style place with no way out. In her opinion, the metaphor was that even with no escape, there is still optimism that there is somewhere else to go." (qtd in Goner). Badlands was meant to be her escape from real life and a way for her to acknowledge that there’s always a bright side. Halsey throughout some of the songs like “Gasoline” and “New Americana” talk about her want to be free from the celebrity life. She is looking for a way to be living a simpler existence while also not being positioned and as she says in “Castle” poised. “Sick of all these people talking, sick of all this noise/ Tired of all these cameras flashing, sick of being poised.” (Castle)
In conclusion, the Badlands album by Halsey is an example of mental health struggles, expectations from the male gaze and the crushing pressure of celebrity beauty standards. She goes in depth in the connecting lyrics between songs about each of these presenting issues. My critical analysis and research have brought me to conclude that these songs were heavily impactful to teens between 13-18 because of their relatability to issues that teens face as well. Even though typical teens are not facing beauty standards to the degree that someone under the spotlight is, they are still being criticized by peers and social media on a regular basis. In the formative years this pressure is so large that it impacts people to astonishing levels. Teens are also experiencing bullying and mental health struggles that vary from person to person but they can find solace in this music which is part of why this album was such a hit in 2015. Halsey’s freedom and sexuality throughout these songs is freeing as well as insightful. Her creation of this entire world throughout this album allows a whole range of depth into a whole spectrum of issues and dilemmas in her life. She does a great job of showing the feminism side of her world as well as the hurt side that is searching for love and affection. Halsey does a great job with Badlands and from here continues to release music with similar mantras and ideals.
Citations
Graves, Shahlin. “Interview: Halsey on her debut album, 'Badlands'.”CoupdeMain magazine, July 16, 2015. https://www.coupdemainmagazine.com/interviews/interview-halsey-her-debut-album-badlands (accessed February 18, 2022).
Goner.” Badlands Concept part 1.” AminoApps. April 18, 2017. https://aminoapps.com/c/young-gods/page/blog/badlands-concept-part-one/GMz2_kmFnuJ8aoKN7KkjJmrnN8DW3NKrXj (accessed February 18, 2022).
Badlands album by Halsey. August 28, 2015. Castle, Hold me Down, New Americana, Drive, Roman Holiday, Gasoline, Control.
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