If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is what happens when Halsey wakes up one day and decides to rewrite the Bible. Halsey’s fourth album dropped on Aug. 27 and explores themes of pregnancy, childbirth, and the singer’s journey into the tumultuous world of motherhood. The songs are arranged haphazardly — a stream of consciousness from soft, sultry pop numbers to violent guitar riffs that jar listeners, should they follow in chronological order. Her switch from atmospheric pop to wily punk feels like Halsey has entered her own reputation era.
Back in 2020, Halsey was one of the most vocal celebrities during the Black Lives Matter protests, a victim herself to police brutality while in protest with civilians. A lot of the language used in songs on this album depicts crude Christian imagery, body horror, women trying to climb free of patriarchal grips, and violent resistance to subjugation. Fans of Grimes P.B. (pre-billionaire) will embrace this album with open arms, but it’s new territory for Badlands and Manic fans. While her songwriting remains ever so thematic and haunting, her switch in music production is experimental and, at times, jarring.
Godhood and childbirth are entwined like an ouroboros — that to give life is to be divine — but Halsey’s songwriting suggests there’s a quality to childbirth that is equally unholy. “I am not a woman, I’m a god” has lyrics ripe for the picking, but it’s one of the chorus lines, “I am not a martyr, I’m a problem,” that speaks to the concept of resistance Halsey is trying to convey. Late into her own pregnancy during production of this album, Halsey describes the horror of a transforming body in “1121” (“I know / The parts of myself that I’ve hated / And I can’t tell which ones are mine / And which I created”) and the subjugation of female sexuality (“Jesus needed a three-day weekend / To sort out all his bullshit, figure out the treason”) in “Bells in Santa Fe.”
“The Tradition” is a narrative song about profound loneliness and isolation, with a bridge that comes together in such a musically taunting way that it’s disappointing that the lyrics don’t align as strongly with the rest of the song. “Darling” has a folkloristic rhythm that serves as a mellow break from the furious guitar strings of “You asked for this.” The track “Lilith,” one of her grittier songs on the album, toys with the uncertainty of assuming motherhood and the role of a wife, and of how animalistic and unwomanly the narrator claims to be. This panic of impending doom starts to subside toward the end of the album, namely in “1121” when Halsey belts “I won’t die for love / But ever since I met you / You could have my heart / And I would break it for you.”
If fans are expecting another Badlands, it’s unfortunate to say that this album isn’t it — but If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power blends genres and experimental productions. As always, Halsey’s voice is seductive, drawing the listener into the graphic world of ache and power.
