Halsey - Manic (January 17, 2020) Album • Page 2

nightmare is a jam

 

Nightmare is a song the needs to be everywhere. I’ll gladly help it get there.

 

I have to disagree with this because I think her love of P!ATD is present in so many of her songs.

 

Rewatching this video and she just has so many fantastic LOOKS! The visuals are dope. And is there even a man in the entire thing? Truly stanning.

 

I don't think that is at odds with what I posted though

 

Nope, the entire video from production to acting talent was all-women.

 

I guess it depends on your definition of "alternative." I just think there is a lot of unnecessary gatekeeping of young women and too much scrutiny put on how they want to label themselves. Like it's easier for people to dismiss her as a "poser" because of their own arbitrary definitions of a scene or genre.

 

I think trying to define genre is outdated: Genre label a hallmark of a time when people had a limited amount of money to spend on entertainment and needed everything put into a neat little box so they could easily decide what they wanted to spend it on. We're past that, music can be all genres or it can be no genre. So now all the words refer to is the scenes and people we associate it with.

Plus alternative really has nothing to do with the way a song sounds, and everything to do with the scene it comes from. Halsey grew up listening to bands ranging from Taking Back Sunday to The 1975 therefore she's "alternative" because that's the scene she associated herself with.

 

Yeah I suppose so it does come down to genre definitions, and overall I agree that genres are very loose these days and aren't really great discussion points anyway. For Halsey specifically, I just feel like she has used the idea of "alternative" as a marketing tool (which is smart for her, obviously) when I truly don't think the music reflects what falls under that genre (rock music), but rather just straightforward pop music (again, not a bad thing). If she called herself hip hop I would also balk at that also. I really don't think it's about male or female though, I've just always sen her promoted as alt rock/alt pop but then listening to her albums it feels false.

 

I guess this is what I disagree with most, "alternative" in my mind is 100% about the way a song sounds. I think that if something is called alternative then you should be able to strip away anything visual, press play on a song, and hear alternative rock music.

 

She’s alternative pop which is definitely a thing

 

What makes her alternative to pop though? Just feels like pop music, nothing different.

 

I guess songs like Bad at Love or whatever are pretty pop but like Billie Eilish would also be alt pop and Halsey’s songs like Control, Gasoline and many others are more in that realm rather than being like Katy Perry or something

 

I hate that term only because it's used by like Dave Grohl saying Lorde and Billie Eilish are real music unlike other pop stars

 

Yah I guess it just comes down to stupid genre definition in the end, whatever. My overall point is that Nightmare is rockin and heavy and hard and goes off

 

It doesn't necessarily need to be alternative to pop, it's a style of pop that absorbs Alternative influences in the form of sharper lyrics, minor keys, analog instrumentation. Like compare Nightmare or Without Me to the modern pop hits like "In My Feelings" or "The Middle" or whatever and they're both darker and more songwriterly.

Also a lot of it is that since Hip-hop and (decreasingly) EDM dominate the musical landscape, things that would traditionally be pop music are now alternative, because the term "Alternative" changes relative to what the mainstream is. We're at a point right now where raw hip-hop in the style of Migos, or even "Emo Rap" in the style of Juice WRLD, despite being "alternative" to pop rap, dominate the musical landscape as a whole.

 

Here I saw her opening for The Kooks playing a full band cover of When You Were Young before her EP was even out #alt

 

I do think this is an interesting discussion, because genre labels really have become looser in the last decade or so I think. If you look at the biggest “alternative” songs on the charts right now, a lot of them are pretty far from what would’ve been considered alternative rock in the 90s-early 2000s... and that’s fine! I do see Steve’s point as well, but now that I’m really thinking about it, if Walk the Moon (who I love) is labeled under “alternative” when they’re basically a pop band, there’s really no reason Halsey and other “alt-pop” singers can’t fit under that label too.

 

Also, I haven’t heard the new Halsey song yet but based on all the praise in here I’m stoked to check it out! I’m also someone who thinks she has some great songs but hadn’t quite reached her full potential. I never listen to the radio anymore so I often miss big pop songs coming up... excited to hear this when I get home!

 

This kind of conversation always brings up the interesting idea of race as well. It's a long-running issue that black pop musicians are labeled as R&B because of color. Look at Tinashe, Beyonce, Rihanna, etc... that's pop music for sure, but their color makes it R&B.

Relative to this discussion, "Without Me" is a carbon copy of "Needed Me" but Halsey's song is alt pop whereas Rihanna's is R&B.

 

Considering Halsey is half black, I think that’s actually probably why she fiercely clings to her alternative label because she doesn’t want to be automatically labeled as r&b.

 

Definitely an interesting thought I hadn't thought about either

 

I always saw "alternative pop" as being super vague anyway, so I use it when lyrics are a bit edged up/ultra personal OR if it uses more rock elements. Halsey has always fallen into the first category for me.

Then again, I feel like it's been years since I actually understood the nuances of the 5 million genres and subgenres out there. All these damn kids need to get off my lawn.

 

you mean you aren't up to date with the latest soundcloud mumble trapcore bops?

 

I checked out in 2012 when I got a pitch for something called water pop, never bothered to figure out what that meant