If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power

Halsey recruited Trent Reznor (left) and Atticus Ross (right) for the album's production, with whom she said she had always wanted to collaborate.

In January 2020, Halsey released her[note 2] third studio album, Manic, which spawned "Without Me", her second number one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.[4][5] She toured Europe from February to March 2020 as part of her third concert tour, the Manic World Tour, before the rest of the tour was postponed and later cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[6] During the pandemic, Halsey remained musically active; she contributed the song "Experiment on Me" to the soundtrack for the superhero film Birds of Prey (2020), produced by Oliver Sykes and Jordan Fish (of Bring Me the Horizon),[7] and collaborated on songs with artists such as Kelsea Ballerini's "The Other Girl", Juice Wrld's "Life's a Mess", and Machine Gun Kelly's "Forget Me Too".[8] She also announced her first pregnancy, with American screenwriter Alev Aydin, after suffering several miscarriages due to endometriosis[8] and undergoing surgery in 2017.[4]

Around 2019, Halsey decided to reinvent her sound.[9] "If I want to sustain myself and give myself longevity, I need to continue to make things that I love and make things that challenge me as a creative".[9] She reached out to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails with a letter, asking them if they could produce the album.[9] "I was just really honest and said I was a huge fan and I’ve been plagiarising you guys for years – badly – and I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I have anything new to offer you, but this album is about pregnancy, gender identity, body horror. The most important thing to me is that this album has tension – it needs to be visceral, or I’m doing a disservice to the message."[9]

The album was a long-distance project, with Reznor and Ross recording in Los Angeles while Halsey sang all of its songs at a studio in Turks and Caicos Islands. Other remote contributions include drums by American musician Dave Grohl in "Honey" and guitar by American musician Lindsey Buckingham in "Darling".[10] Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, Halsey stated she had been wanting to work with Nine Inch Nails for years, because she "wanted really cinematic sort of, not horror specifically, but kind of just really unsettling production" on one of her projects.[11] In an interview with Lizzy Goodman at Capitol Studios, Halsey stated that she started working on the album in June 2020, and that "Lilith" was the first song written for the record.[12]

If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power is an alternative rock,[13][14] grunge-pop,[15] pop punk,[13] and rock record,[16] with heavy industrial rock influences[17][18][15] and an overarching cinematic mood.[19] It also infuses synth-pop,[16] ambient,[17] noise rock, punk rock,[18] drum n' bass, hip hop,[20] and avant-garde elements in its songs.[21] Critics dubbed the album a departure from the arena-pop sound of Halsey's previous albums.[13] The instrumentation of If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power consists of rattling drums, rough and heavily distorted guitar riffs,[15] tinkling keyboard lines, stark pianos, and drum machines.[16] Feminism is the coalescing theme throughout the album, specifically institutionalized misogyny[20] and patriarchy.[22] However, Halsey stated that it was not a "girl power" album.[23] "[T]he lead single is ‘I Am Not a Woman, I’m a God’ [...] From the jump, I’m like, ‘I’m not a woman.’ I’m not saying any of that. There’s no girl power in this album."[23]

The album's cover artwork is modelled after the Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, a 1452 Renaissance painting of Madonna by Jean Fouquet.

The cover artwork of If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power was unveiled through video shot at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, in which Halsey walked through the exhibits before finally pulling away a cover to reveal the life-size picture of the artwork.[27] The cover artwork was photographed by Lucas Garrido.[28] It depicts an artistic rendering of Halsey as Madonna, a category of icons and works of art depicting Mary, mother of Jesus. The singer is seen seated on a golden throne, wearing a purple dress, holding a baby with a towel, with her left breast exposed. She stated that the artwork portrays "the sentiment of [her] journey over the past few months",[25] and aims to uproot the social stigma around "bodies & breastfeeding".[29]

The artwork was specifically inspired by the Virgin and Child Surrounded By Angels from Jean Fouquet's two-panel Renaissance oil painting called Melun Diptych, and became a subject of widespread attention and discussion on the internet.[30] The Mercury News associated the artwork with the topfreedom movement on Instagram "#FreeTheNipple", and noted visual similarities to Cersei Lannister, a Game of Thrones character.[31] However, The Spectator criticized it for appropriation of Catholic art, expressing bafflement with "the complacency of today's Catholics when it comes to the misuse of their iconography."[32] A censored version of the album cover, where the exposed left nipple is covered by the baby's hand, is also available to music streaming platforms.[1] The censored version of the cover was also used on CD and vinyl pressings available at Target and Walmart stores.

On June 28, 2021, numerous billboards went up across major cities of the United States, announcing the fourth studio album by Halsey, titled If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power.[8] The singer confirmed it herself through her social media accounts on the same day.[33] Together with the announcement, she also previewed one of the tracks from the album.[34] It was also revealed that the album was produced by American musician Trent Reznor and English musician Atticus Ross, members of American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails.[35] In a short teaser video, Halsey hinted at the album's punk rock sound.[8] On July 7, 2021, Halsey unveiled the cover art and announced that If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power would be released on August 27, 2021.[36] Halsey gave birth to her child, Ender Ridley Aydin, on July 14, 2021.[37]

The album was released on August 27, 2021,[25] with minimal promotion.[13] Its CDs, vinyl records, and box sets were made available for pre-order on July 7, 2021, on Halsey's webstore. Limited-edition red vinyl LPs, with an alternative cover, were sold exclusively at Urban Outfitters.[38] Halsey graced the August 2021 cover of American women's magazine Allure, for which she was interviewed about her social identity, relationships, pregnancy, and family.[39] On July 23, 2021, an online game called "LXXXXP" was launched, which is a choose-your-own-adventure-style platform that encourages users to "choose your path and discover your destiny". The "You drowned in a freezing lake" outcome results in a snippet of a song from the album, which turns out to be an instrumental from "The Lighthouse", track 12.[40] On August 10, 2021, the titles of the album's songs were revealed through Amazon Alexa, which recited the track listing upon asking it "Alexa, tell me about Halsey's new album." The next day, Halsey herself posted the track list across her social media.[41][26] No singles were released from the album prior to its release.[42][21][13]

Halsey debuted "I Am Not a Woman, I'm a God" and "Darling" live at Saturday Night Live on October 9, 2021, hosted by American media personality Kim Kardashian. For the performance of "Darling", she was accompanied by Lindsey Buckingham playing guitar and providing backup vocals.[43] An extended version of the album, featuring the 2019 single "Nightmare" as well as a reprise of it, and an exclusive track, titled "People Disappear Here", was released on January 3, 2022.[44] ("People Disappear Here" features Mike Garson at the outro but was not properly credited in the footnote.[45]). On August 31, 2022, Halsey released a deluxe edition of the album, including three demos from the songs "1121", "Honey" and "Lilith".

Halsey performed the Diablo IV Anthem version of "Lilith" at The Game Awards 2022 as a joint promotion with Diablo IV whose primary antagonist shares the same name. The full version with Suga of BTS was released on June 5, 2023 along with the music video.

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	7.7/10[61]
Metacritic	80/100[62]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[63]
Clash	8/10[64]
The Independent	[15]
Kerrang!	4/5[11]
The Line of Best Fit	8/10[13]
NME	[22]
Pitchfork	7.0/10[42]
Rolling Stone	[65]
Slant	[20]
The Sydney Morning Herald	[66]

If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power received mostly positive reviews upon release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from publications, the album has a weighted mean score of 80 based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[62]

Spin praised If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power for its "masterclass in songwriting" and "seductive" production.[18] NME's Nick Levine described the album as an intense, intricate, cinematic, "fierce and fascinating" artistic statement,[22] while Craig Jenkins of Vulture hailed it as "the best Halsey album" for its sound and concept.[16] Sal Cinquemani of Slant also lauded its production, and its "straightforward" themes of "self-doubt, self-sabotage, self-empowerment".[20] Marie Oleinik, reviewing for The Line of Best Fit, dubbed the album a bold and ambitious work of art, with "gorgeous, intense" production that is "never overdone", and admired its simplistic and "breathtakingly tender" songs as well.[13] Music journalist Jon Pareles, writing for The New York Times, said the album is a homage to Halsey's "1990s roots" and simultaneously a strategic turn toward archetypes, eschewing autobiographical lyrics.[10] Luke Morton of Kerrang! said the album is "not a pop record, nor should it be", rather delves into Halsey's punk affinity, solidifying her creative freedom. He added it is a record of juxtaposing moods, where a stream of consciousness connects the tracks to one another.[11]

Jessie Atkinson of Gigwise felt the album displays Halsey's potential and "restrained development in sound".[67] Clash critic Robin Murray deemed it a "powerful song cycle", exhibiting Halsey at her most confrontational, "direct and unbowed".[64] Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen of The Sydney Morning Herald wrote If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power is a "theatrical, grandiose listening experience" that works as a proclamation of Halsey's identity and artistic intentions, and complimented the sonic diversity of its tracks.[66] Variety's Chris Willman picked the album's honest songwriting and alternative rock sound as its best aspects, emphasizing the creative chemistry between Halsey, Reznor and Ross.[68] Helen Brown of The Independent compared Halsey to Pink and Grimes in "bringing a darker, racketier attitude to major-label pop". Brown dubbed the album "a definite power-up", and suggested Halsey could have experimented more musically and lyrically, to "allow the songs to make a deeper mark".[15]

Some reviews were moderately critical of the album. Rolling Stone critic Julyssa Lopez wrote If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power is an adventurous, highly dramatic, and "supremely theatrical" album, that is slightly overwrought at times.[65] Dani Blum of Pitchfork named the album the strongest project of Halsey's career, and praised its experimental production by Reznor and Ross, but felt it becomes "unsettlingly claustrophobic" due to its lack of featured acts.[42] Consequence's Mary Siroky complimented the album's production and themes, but expressed mixed opinions about its lyrics; she felt they are, at times, simply "interesting phrases more than they are interesting ideas", but elsewhere, the lyrics "unfold like poetry".[21] John Amen, writing for PopMatters, said If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power has some of the best songs and vocals of Halsey's career, but its "inaptly sleek" production undercuts her connection with listeners. Nevertheless, he felt the album "contains enough magic to be infectious."[69] Kitty Empire of The Observer said the album's 13 tracks "don't quite live up" to the theme Halsey teased, a "Game of Thrones-meets-French Revolution-themed goth rock opera about the Madonna–whore complex."[70]

The album reached the top 10 of the official albums charts of various countries. In the United States, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power arrived at number two on the Billboard 200, blocked from the top spot by American rapper Kanye West's Donda (2021). The album marked Halsey's fourth consecutive album to reach the chart's top two. It opened with 98,000 album-equivalent units, consisting of 26,500 streaming units and 70,500 sales. Of the 70,500 sum, physical sales comprise 52,500 copies (across CDs, vinyl LPs and cassettes), while digital album sales were 18,000.[87] Additionally, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power topped the Top Alternative Albums, yielding Halsey's second number-one album on the chart after Badlands (2015), her debut studio album.[88] On February 1, 2023, the album was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[89]

Credits adapted from Tidal.[96]

Musicians

Technical