Halsey’s “Nightmare:” Angry, Loud, and Relevant
Days after Alabama called for some of the most restrictive abortion laws since the establishment of Roe V Wade, alternative pop singer Halsey has released a timely single. The music video for the track, entitled “NIGHTMARE,” shows Halsey, born Ashley Frangipane, flipping subjugated roles on their head. She leads an angry mob of women, posts up on a stoop with former model Cara Delevingne, and finds herself bound in a Brooke Candy-esque spider web that blends bondage with dreamcatcher. She raises a sign toting the words “You Smile, Asshole” as she swaps costumes, rejecting different patriarchal narratives placed upon women. Her lyrics feel painfully relevant as the fate of women’s bodily autonomy hangs by a thread in the southern United States.
The song bounces between outright pop-punk in its booming chorus where Halsey recounts how she “keeps a record of the wreckage of [her] life” and a softer bridge where she introspectively views herself as the titular “nightmare.” The guitar shreds against her loud vocals to create a newer, angrier sound than we’re used to from the pop star. Given her rockstar inspirations, she even has a Marilyn Manson tattoo, this more abrasive sound is no surprise. Throughout the verses and bridge the instrumentals soften under her sickly sweet vocals, creating a duality fully representative of both Halsey and her work.
With the new era fully commenced, “Nightmare” marks the loudest, most “give-no-fucks” Halsey we’ve seen yet.
