Halsey announces upcoming album ‘If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’

UPDATE: JULY 7, 2021, 5:00 P.M. E.T.

Halsey officially released the cover art for their fourth album via Instagram. The photographic artwork celebrates the beauty of the body after childbirth and the duality of autonomy. As if depicted by a Renaissance painting, a baby sits on their lap with a curled-over hand and wrinkled blanket.

Of the breathtaking cover art for If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, which was shot by Lucas Garrido, the artist had this to say:

“This album is a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth. It was very important to me that the cover art conveyed the sentiment of my journey over the past few months. The dichotomy of the Madonna and the Whore. The idea that me as a sexual being and my body as a vessel and gift to my child are two concepts that can co-exist peacefully and powerfully. My body has belonged to the world in many different ways the past few years, and this image is my means of reclaiming my autonomy and establishing my pride and strength as a life force for my human being. 

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This cover image celebrates pregnant and postpartum bodies as something beautiful, to be admired. We have a long way to go with eradicating the social stigma around bodies & breastfeeding. I hope this can be a step in the right direction!

My fourth album, out August 27, 2021.”

 

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Halsey has announced their fourth studio album, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. The new release will feature production from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails.

Halsey made the June 28 announcement via Twitter, providing an agonizingly short sample of what’s to come from the project. The distorted audio bite seems to allude to a grittier sound from Halsey.

They also posted a video on their Instagram, showing a billboard that teased the album art for If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. The official Nine Inch Nails Instagram account posted an identical video and caption.

 

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If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power follows the 2020 album Manic, which went platinum in the United States. The record was supposed to have an accompanying tour, but it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the cancellation, this year has been big for Halsey. They started by announcing in January that they are pregnant and then launched their new makeup brand, about-face. 

Halsey told Byrdie that about-face is largely inspired by the ‘90s music scene. 

“I feel like I never really see makeup anymore that’s about being fucked up and dirty and grungy and just wrong, and so much makeup used to be about that,” Halsey says to Byrdie.  “I’m just paying homage to the style of makeup and the makeup influences that I’ve always loved: very ’90s-heavy, very Myspace scene queen, very emo revival.”

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Halsey’s new record is in good hands with Reznor and Ross. Along with Jon Batiste, the pair recently won the award for Best Original Score at the 2021 Academy Awards. The duo also took home an award at the Golden Globes for Disney and Pixar‘s jazz-infused Soul. Additionally, they were nominated in the same Oscar category for David Fincher’s Mank.

Reznor and Ross have previously won a Grammy for the score of Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. They also earned an Emmy for the score of Damon Lindelof’s HBO limited series Watchmen.

Additionally, Reznor and Ross released two instrumental albums in 2020 with Nine Inch Nails, Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts, which were released for free as gifts to fans during the pandemic.

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More new music is possibly on its way from the duo. Reznor hinted about new NIN material backstage following his latest Oscar win. 

“Ten years ago, when we did The Social Network, which is the first film that we worked on, it was such a great experience,” Reznor says. “We just came out of it inspired and reenergized, and it was working on a medium we hadn’t done before and learned so much that we felt like, ‘Hey, let’s do a Nine Inch Nails record; let’s go on tour.’

“What we’ve tried to do since then is break it up where we do some rock music, we come back and do some film work,” Reznor continues. “We’ve just done three pretty big films in Watchmen, Mank and Soul in a row. We should be on tour, but COVID has prevented that. We are planning on working on Nine Inch Nails material as soon as, probably tomorrow.”

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Nine Inch Nails will be playing live at multiple festivals throughout 2021 and 2022, including Riot Fest and Louder Than Life Festival in September. 

Nine Inch Nails will first visit Riot Fest Sunday, Sept. 19, alongside a wide range of artists, including Pixies and K.Flay. They will then play Saturday, Sept. 25 at Louder Than Life Festival alongside Machine Gun Kelly, Asking Alexandria and grandson but not before playing a couple of shows in Cleveland to celebrate their 2020 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. 

The band’s final date scheduled for 2021 will be at Welcome to Rockville, playing on the bill with Deftones, Cypress Hill and Stone Temple Pilots. 

Nine Inch Nails’ schedule is slated to pick back up in June 2022, when they will play the 15th-anniversary edition of Hellfest. You can get tickets to all these shows here.

09/19 — Chicago, IL @ Riot Fest
09/21 — Cleveland, OH @ Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica
09/23 — Cleveland, OH @ Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica
09/25 — Louisville, KY @ Louder Than Life Festival
11/11 — Daytona Beach, FL @ Welcome to Rockville
06/24 — Clisson, FR @ Hellfest