NEED TO KNOW
- In an interview with Apple Music One’s Zane Lowe that aired on Thursday, Sept. 18, Halsey expressed frustration that her label won’t allow her to make a new record
- According to Halsey, her record label believes that the 2024 release The Great Impersonator “underperformed”
- “It would be considered a success for most artists … But it’s a failure in the context of the kind of success I’ve had previously,” she said of the album’s success
Halsey is explaining why she hasn’t been releasing new music.
“I can’t make an album right now,” the 30-year-old singer-songwriter revealed to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in an interview that aired on Thursday, Sept. 18. “I’m not allowed to. It’s the reality.”
Halsey said her 2024 album, The Great Impersonator, is the reason why, noting that it “didn’t perform the way they wanted it to.”
After its release on Oct. 25, 2024, Halsey’s fifth studio album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart.
“If I’m being honest with you, the album sold 100,000 f—— copies first week,” Halsey told Lowe. “That’s a pretty big first week, especially for an artist who hasn’t had a hit in a long time.”
She noted that her My Last Trick Tour “is the highest-selling” of her “entire career. But they want Manic numbers from me.”
Halsey’s Manic featured the lead single “Without Me,” which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is 6x certified platinum after exceeding 6 million units.
Comparing those numbers toThe Great Impersonator, Halsey said, “It would be considered a success for most artists, 100,000 albums in the first week, in an era when we don’t sell physical music. But it’s a failure in the context of the kind of success I’ve had previously. And that’s the hardest part of having been a pop star once, because I’m not one anymore, and I’m being compared to people that I don’t consider lateral to me.”
The “Colors” singer is currently signed to Columbia Records, following a 2023 split with Capitol Records, the label that released her first four albums, including Manic and her 2015 debut album Badlands in 2015.
Halsey’s latest tour sold out almost instantly. It featured 32 dates and kicked off in Concord, Calif., in May 2025, in Concord, before wrapping in Highland, Calif. in July.
She’ll also begin the Back to Badlands Tour in Los Angeles,to mark her first album’s 10th anniversary.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Speaking with Lowe, Halsey expressed gratitude for her “dedicated fanbase.”
“I love them, God bless them, because they’re the only reason that I’m even able to make anything at all, that I can sell that many copies of an experimental concept album about death,” she said. “They support me.”
Read the full article here