In a four-star review, NME described it as a “defiant artistic statement of their singular talent”.Īnd now, the trailblazing musician will be the recipient of the Innovation Award at the BandLab NME Awards at O2 Brixton Academy in March 2022. Together, they went all-in on the industrial rock sounds that had lingered in the background of her music since the start. In August 2021, she entered a new but equally inventive era with ‘If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’, an album that saw her team up with her heroes, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Ever since, they’ve pushed boundaries and raised bars with their ambitious and creative pop, whether she’s been building dystopian wonderlands (‘Badlands’), crafting their own Shakespearean mythology on a Romeo and Juliet-inspired follow-up ( ‘Hopeless Fountain Kingdom’), or unpicking persona and alter-ego ( ‘Manic’). In reality, a ‘Worst Artist’ award was never on the cards for the New Jersey-born singer from the moment she broke through with her debut album ‘Badlands’ in 2015. “I would be like, ‘Hey, you know, at least I’m being recognised for something’.” “I guess I just thought the only way I would ever get an NME Award was if it was gonna be that,” Halsey explains over the phone from her LA house one crisp autumn morning. Today, they burst out laughing when they’re reminded of that desire but, while the forward-thinking artist notes they’re “very sarcastic on the internet”, that tweet did give a glimpse into how accepted they once presumed they’d be in NME’s world. “I always wanted to be voted ‘worst band/artist’ at the NME Awards but I guess they have other plans,” she tweeted at the time.
Now if only we could find a mini-Courtney Love.The last time Halsey graced the cover of NME back in 2018, she shared the cover shot with a tongue-in-cheek caveat. “Lay back, it’s all been done before,” she quips at one point, but as we’ve learned from other formulaic creations like Mandy Moore and Pink, young artists can turn on a dime and find their own voices.
She reduces teen troubles down to the trials and tribulations of the kids who wear baggy clothes (“Sk8er Boi”) and you can bet she’s not referencing Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” when she spews double-negatives on the white-girls-can’t-rap tune “Nobody’s Fool.” The album’s lead single, the infectious “Complicated,” is more poser than punk, and Clif Magness’s drum loops and impeccable production often dull the few edges the album actually has. Lyrically, though, she falls short of Morissette’s razor-sharp guile Lavigne proclaims “If I could say what I want to say/I’d say I want to blow you…away,” but it’s still a long way from going down on your boyfriend in a theater. If Britney is 90210, Lavigne is My So-Called Life, drawing on her real-life skater-punk angst to perfectly capture the intense drama of teenage love on “Too Much to Ask” and the sweet “I’m With You.” Lavigne’s vocals are dynamic and larger than life on tracks like “Losing Grip,” often slipping into quirky patterns reminiscent of her fellow-Canadian superstar. Sure, teen pop may have gone bust but the new revolution is still pint-sized: the latest in the new breed of young singer-songwriters is 17-year-old Avril Lavigne, Gen Y’s mini-Alanis. First there was mini-Madonna (Britney Spears) and mini-Mariah (Jessica Simpson), and then, of course, living fashion-plate Christina Aguilera, who looks as if she’s dipped into the walk-in closets of just about every diva in music history.