View this post on Instagram

A post shared by halsey (@iamhalsey)

Halsey, full name Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, released ‘Badlands’ at just 20 years old and to put it lightly, it took the world by storm. Halsey immediately cultivated a dedicated, cult following online, falling headfirst alongside her into the dry, eroded terrain of the ‘Badlands.’

The record has remained a staple in individuals’ playlists for a decade and is, without a doubt, one of the most impactful releases from 2015. As of 2025, Halsey dropped a fresh anniversary edition of the record, resulting in a mammoth spike in sales, further proving that fans still adore this nostalgic whirlwind.

If you were an avid Tumblr and/or Instagram user in the year 2015, you were bound to have witnessed the success of this debut record in the flesh. ‘Badlands’ tracks were everywhere, Instagram edits, playing in Urban Outfitters and encouraging young women globally to invest in a pink fluffy jacket. Halsey raised a generation of rebellious, alternative teenagers and here she is to commemorate that on the ‘Back To Badlands’ tour.

The shows themselves are a heartfelt homage to her first-born release. Halsey cycles through the entirety of the ‘Badlands’ record, whilst simultaneously sprinkling in some newer tracks. The two-and-a-half-hour set is a harsh reminder of how hard she worked to get to where she is today. American artists fight tooth and nail to solidify themselves in the UK music scene, and Halsey’s impact is here to stay.

In terms of UK shows, Halsey attended Manchester on Jan 29 before completing a momentous 3-night streak at the O2 Academy Brixton, London, dating from Feb 1 to Feb 4. Each night, fans had the ability to vote for their preferred tracks on the encore, deep cuts, never-before-played tracks and fan favourites are often fought over. Little did the crowd know that on the third and final night, Halsey had an additional opportunity in store.

Commencing a speech regarding her idols and musical partners, Halsey announced she was bringing someone on stage who greatly inspired her in the early days. Lo and behold, Ellie Goulding waltzed on stage to perform her track, ‘Starry Eyed.’ An eye-watering moment for everyone in attendance.

Not only did she surprise the crowd with one friendly face, but two. Halsey blessed the audience with a surprise performance from Julia Wolf. The New York-based singer made an impromptu visit to London to accompany Halsey on stage, playing her notorious track, ‘In My Room.’

It is absolutely no doubt that Halsey will continue to put on incredible live shows globally. We can only hope and pray that there are more UK performances in the near future.

Gone are the days where one could simply get by on the quality of a good song, in the current climate it’s arguable that a starting out Nirvana couldn’t get on the radio with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” without the thousands of followers necessary to prove their worth. Today it seems the music industry is operating in an almost exclusively algorithmic market that relies more on numbers and statistics to provide proof of an artists potential than it does the traditional ‘gut feeling’ of a cigar toting A&R. Junior scouts now struggle to convince their bosses on a hunch, they need the backing of thousands of thirsty comments on the artists latest well lit bedroom post to gain approval. In many ways it makes complete sense, why risk your job signing someone with no following when you could sign an Instagram model who already has millions of fans in place? It’s a no brainer right? Increasingly the answer seems to be yes, and it’s getting a lot of artists both undiscovered and established in quite the tizz.

Take Halsey for example, you may consider the 27 year old New Jersey singer a house hold name, and you wouldn’t be wrong, she’s sold over 165 million records and streamed over 6 billion times in the US alone, but that doesn’t make her immune to Tik Tok’s sting. In a recent post captioned “I’m tired” she explained how her record label were barring the release of a new song she loved unless they could “fake a viral moment on Tik Tok”. The result? Ironically, 8.8 million views, on Tik Tok.

@halseyI’m tired♬ original sound – Halsey

She’s not the only one, other notably hacked off heavyweights include FKA Twigs, Charlie XCX, Florence Welch, and Rebecca Lucy Taylor AKA Self Esteem, all of whom went to their respective social media outlets to vent their frustration. It’s an interesting conundrum, as Taylor keenly points out “Why are labels so desperate to apply the same techniques to every artist, treating them as social media commodities to sell or personalities to market, rather than talented musicians with their own unique creations, fanbases and brands?”. It seems the ability to remain somewhat mysterious and aloof is largely lost in the ‘share all’ culture that’s emerging, with artists that leaned on their mystique heavily like Florence + the Machine feeling the pinch.

Where this is all going to end up and how damaging or transformative it’s going to be for the industry I don’t know, I’m only allowed 500 words, but one thing’s for sure, it’s certainly stirring up a lot of drama on both sides of the fence.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by halsey (@iamhalsey)

Halsey’s tour will run for 2 months between the 17th of May and the 9th of July and will see her travel across North America with 22 dates. The star-studded pop star announced her tour and a number of guests who will be joining her, the support acts feature a number of UK artists with the Halsey taking Pinkpantheress, Beabadoobee, Wolf Alice and Abby Roberts all from the UK and American group The Marias.

Beabadoobee and Pinkpantheress are the two youngest artists with both of the UK stars being only 21. The pair will join Halsey on the east coast leg of her nationwide tour supporting the pop star at a number of shows and festivals in New York, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, Michigan, Massachusetts, Ohio, Ontario and Maryland. Beabadoobee will have a packed 2022, with the announcement of her support on Halsey’s tour coming just hours after the singer announced she would be supporting indie band Bleachers on their 2022 tour. Pinkpantheress is the one to watch for 2022; after being crowned the sound of 2022 by BBC Radio 1, this year will be her second as an musical artist, following a year that saw her rapidly develop an adoring following.

On the west coast leg of Halsey’s North American tour, the singer will be joined by UK artist Abby Roberts, who only recently began releasing music after doing makeup tutorials online since 2013, and has racked up over 16 million TikTok followers and began releasing music. Her debut track “Paramaniac” sitting on just over 100 thousand views just  3 weeks after its release. Indie rockers The Marias, hailing from California, will also join Halsey and Abby on this leg of the tour. Wolf Alice will set off on their own North American tour in 2022, but will act as a support act at Halsey’s show in California.

Halsey’s North American tour is full of UK talent with tickets going on sale this Friday, tickets and dates are available here.

GO, GO, GOOO ‼️

General release tickets AND payment plans are now on sale! Click the link below for tickets!

Reading https://t.co/MXzhTR5eks
Leeds https://t.co/tL6GPBM1J0 pic.twitter.com/wbErSVYvBC

— Reading & Leeds Fest (@OfficialRandL) December 10, 2021

You can, however, get hold of tickets for the few other remaining days at each of the festivals. The Friday for Reading, or the Saturday for Leeds, with headliners Dave and Megan Thee Stallion, is still very much available for you to get your hands on. The dual headliners will share their day at the festival with Polo G, the immensely talented Little Simz, viral sensation Glass Animals, and industry newcomer PinkPantheress. A few other names are also attributed to the day with many more to be announced in the future.

The final day of the Reading Festival, or the first day of the Leeds Festival, also has day tickets available. So, if you’re in the mood for a genre-hopping day between the politically charged energy of Rage Against the Machine, and 2010’s chart-topping machine Halsey then today is the day for you. The pair will be backed by artists that really highlight the musical, political, and gender diversity of the festival this year. Experimental hip-hop duo Run the Jewels will hit the main stage after Eurovision’s offering this year Måneskin. Bastille and Chloe Moriondo join the line-up as the direct antithesis of the former artists.

As mentioned before, tickets to the Reading’s Saturday, Leeds’ Sunday, could prove to be quite expensive to bad now that the day tickets and festival weekend have sold out. Co-headliners Arctic Monkeys, and Bring Me the Horizon prove that British guitar music is far from dead, and anyone that says otherwise is just too ignorant to bother talking to. Wolf Alice, Fontaines D.C., Enter. Shikari, and Wilkinson round out the festival day.

You can try and get tickets to the remaining days here, if you already have tickets then you can just kick back and listen to this specially curated playlist from the festival themselves. Covering all the top tracks of the big names announced so far.

IT’S FINALLY HERE!! Here are your first 30+ artists for #RandL22 @ThreeUK & @Barclaycard pre-sale tickets on sale now for 48 hours
General release tickets 9am on Friday! Visit link below for more info! #AD #PaidPartnership #RandL22 pic.twitter.com/2K8cWW93Ho

— Reading & Leeds Fest (@OfficialRandL) December 8, 2021

Some of the six headliners that have been announced are no surprise to anyone. There had already been rumours of Arctic Monkeys’ inclusion, so much so that Melvin Benn (Managing Director of Festival Republic) even responded to them, saying “Arctic Monkeys are a law unto themselves and when they decide next to play live is beyond me, if I’m honest.” The band were last seen performing live in the UK back in 2018, and this will be the third time they have performed at the festivals, all coming amid the probable release of a new album next year, following up 2018’s Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino. Also, Rage Against The Machine’s inclusion is hardly a surprise, what with the group having been scheduled for the 2020 festivals before covid forced its cancellation.

As for the other acts, Halsey has been in the news recently, what with her fourth album last Summer (titled If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power), as well as being announced the winner of the BandLab NME Awards’ Innovation Award. Megan Thee Stallion is a multi-Grammy-winning artist who notably contributed vocals for Cardi B’s hit song WAP, and is expected to be releasing new material next year.

However, not all the acts are as well established or experienced. Musical artist Dave will become the youngest headliner at the festivals, being aged only 23 (he’ll be 24 by the time of the performance). Speaking on the opportunity, he said “It’s a massive honour, especially to be in the company of other legends that are headlining …. I’m going to try and have the highest quality production value that I can.“

Also, Bring Me The Horizon have expressed their delight at the opportunity to headline, with frontman Oliver Sykes promising that “We’ll make sure it’s insane. I’ve always said that we’d play it when we’ve earned it, and it’s finally come. We have the songs, we have the bangers, and we might not be a household name but I know that we can put on a show that’s festival-headline quality.” Band keyboardist Jordan Fish remembers being in Reading’s mosh pit when he was 14, feeling that they’ve come “full circle“. However, the band have played Reading before after two other groups had pulled out. Sadly it didn’t go too well for them then, with them all being pelted by the audience (a surprisingly common occurrence at Reading & Leeds). However, this time they seem to have the confidence and experience to rise to the challenge, promising an exciting set for all fans.

Tickets will go on sale this Friday 10^th December from 9 am, and more information on getting them can be found here. If you want to read more details about all the acts headlining at the festival, you can look here.

After tweeting nonstop about the death of George Floyd and encouraging his fans to sign petitions, Yungblud announced on Twitter that he would be protesting. “see you at pan pacific park. bring your fuckin voice”, he tweeted on May 30, followed by a tweet made 10 hours ago, stating “see you in santa monica. keep shouting.” The singer attended the protest together with his musician ex-girlfriend Halsey. Halsey, real name Ashley Frangipane, got hit by a rubber bullet during the protest, sharing the shocking experiences on Twitter afterwards.

Yungblud also took to Twitter to applaud the singer for her brave courage: “i need to say halsey u were incredible today. u acted fearlessly and selflessly. u were so brave and inspirational. when innocent people were unlawfully wounded, u were there with a medical kit bandaging them up. u didn’t think about yourself for one moment. i am proud to know u.” He also shared an Instagram story of the protest in which the protestors are sitting on the street in front of the armed police men, when all of a sudden the vision gets blurry as Yungblud gets up to run away from the scene after what seems to be police starting to shoot.

yungblud standing on top of a car in the middle of the los angeles protests. this is what people with large platforms should be doing pic.twitter.com/wbXzxSKomo

— ً (@duasgay) May 30, 2020

In a video released a day before he first joined the demonstrations, the singer told his fans: “Racism is a subject that should not be strayed away from. Yes, I am a white person, and I have never felt oppressed for the colour of my skin. But I find when racism comes up as a subject, people become uncomfortable and feel like they have to keep their mouth shut. Now is not a time to keep your mouth shut. Now is a time for change. Black lives fucking matter. There is literally a war going on right now outside your doorstep, it’s not at the other side of the world, and it’s time for a change. Like this senseless hate needs to stop and we are the ones who can actually put a stop to it.”

Halsey later informed her fans in a detailed thread on Twitter about what happened to her and Yungblud at the protests. “fired rubber bullets at us. we did not breach the line. hands were up. unmoving. and they gassed and fired”, the singer tells her followers. And just like Yungblud thanked her for her courage, she also thanked him: And a big personal thank you to yungblud who literally ran exposed in front of rounds being shot to drag wounded people to safety without even thinking twice.”

The shocking video material from protests all across America have also left the rest of the world in shock. Though it definitely is a good thing that celebrities like Yungblud and Halsey are using their privileged status to help and protest, we hope that they’re staying safe.

do everything you can to keep this movement alive. keep talking, keep peacefully protesting, keep changing opinions. be on the true, right, side of history. fight for the good in this world.

— YUNGBLUD (@yungblud) June 1, 2020

‘Music to listen to~dance to~blaze to~pray to~feed to~sleep to~talk to~grind to~trip to~breathe to~help to~hurt to~scroll to~roll to~love to~hate to~learn Too~plot to~play to~be to~feel to~breed to~sweat to~dream to~hide to~live to~die to~GO TO’.

And that’s not a computer error. Further still, the song titles within the project sound just as surreal, from their Halsey collaboration, ‘¿’, (an upside-down question mark), or track six, ‘like seeing spiders running riot on your lover’s grave’, (a collaboration with happyalone).

Rather remarkably, the fifth track, ‘Underground Big (HEADFULOFHYENA)’, (a team-up with BEXEY & Lotus Eater), runs for a staggering 24 minutes. Yes, 24 minutes. Yonaka and Toriel further feature on ‘Music To Listen To…’.

BEXEY, Yonaka, Lotus Eater and Toriel further feature on the project.

Their change in musical direction has never been more apparent than it is now with this new work, but it is no criticism on a band who has been challenging their musical creativity, breaking into new places for years, and subsequently reaping the rewards of their experimentation. The band recently scored their first ever UK Number One with ‘amo’.

In a statement from Bring Me The Horizon, they said: “Thank you to everyone in the UK for getting our new album ‘amo’ to Number 1. Thanks for buying it and streaming it and showing us support – it really means a lot to us. Thank you very much, we love you.”

This eight-track collection follows the release of ‘Ludens’, from the soundtrack to the ‘Death Stranding: Timefall’, directed by Hideo Kojima, released on November 8.

Bring Me The Horizon also launched customized merch based on Spotify streaming activity from their fans. Launched for a limited time only through their website, amo in colour, their fans select their favorite six tracks from ‘amo’, and with analysis of ‘loudness and energy’ from music intelligence platform The Echo Nest, a customized T-Shirt featuring the trademark hexagram logo and imagined color from the songs selected is made.

The annual spectacular, that is Capital’s Summertime Ball, will be returning to Wembley Stadium, on Saturday the 8th of June 2019. Among the names announced, this morning (May 01) was Rita Ora, Anne Marie, Sigala, Tom Walker, Jax Jones, and, Norwegian singer and BBC Sound of 2018 winner, Sigrid.

Today, we announced that these stars are performing at the #CapitalSTB:
@AnneMarie,
@SigalaMusic,
@thisissigrid,
@IamTomWalker,
@JaxJones,
@RitaOra

But which huge name are we gonna reveal tomorrow? Keep your eyes on the Ballboards. pic.twitter.com/ZYWH5Xf5Da

— Capital (@CapitalOfficial) May 1, 2019

Sigrid has described playing the iconic London landmark, that is Wembley, as “insane”. Meanwhile, Speaking about her performance at the Summertime Ball, in June, Sigrid, said: “I’m going to love it. I probably should say that I have a masterplan but I think we’re going to run up and have fun and play our favourite songs.”

They will share the stage with the recently reunited US pop group the Jonas Brothers, with their appearance at the Summertime Ball marking their first UK show in ten years. The band recently dropped new track ‘Sucker’, taken from their forthcoming album, ‘Hippieness Begins’, which will be released the day before the Summertime Ball – Friday the 7th of June 2019.

The series of big reveals kicked off, on Monday (April 29), with the first six artists being revealed including Halsey – who won the Rising Star award at this year’s Global Awards. Among the other names announced, on Monday, were Mark Ronson, 5 Seconds of Summer, Ellie Goulding, and Khalid.

Today, we announced that these stars are performing at the #CapitalSTB: @MarkRonson, @5SOS, @elliegoulding, @thegreatkhalid, @jonasbrothers, @halsey But which six names are we gonna reveal tomorrow? Make sure you’ve got your eyes on the Ballboards. pic.twitter.com/GMgNu5ag6z — Capital (@CapitalOfficial) April 29, 2019

Six more acts will be revealed everyday of the week until the full line-up is revealed. Meanwhile, on Tueday (April 30), Roman Kemp revealed that Maroon 5; Jess Glynne; Ava Max; Lauv; Jonas Blue; and Mabel, will be heading the Summertime Ball, next month. It has been revealed that one final massive name will be revealed on Thursday, (May 02), morning’s show.

Today, we announced that these stars are performing at the #CapitalSTB:
@maroon5,
@JessGlynne,
@avamax,
@lauvsongs,
@JonasBlue,
@Mabel

But which six names are we gonna reveal tomorrow? Make sure you’ve got your eyes on the Ballboards. pic.twitter.com/8ofos7nJGM

— Capital (@CapitalOfficial) April 30, 2019

Today’s reveal comes after Capital announced, at the weekend, that they would be using billboards across the UK to reveal the acts that will be performing at this year’s Summertime Ball. They also revealed that they would be enlisting the help of listeners to reveal the acts that were on the billboards, by getting them to get in touch with the station, by sending in photos of the names displayed on the billboards.

Speaking about the series of big reveals, Founder & Executive President of Global, Ashley Tabor OBE, said: “Today we kicked off our massive reveal week on Capital Breakfast by announcing some of the world’s biggest artists for Capital’s Summertime Ball.

“We are especially excited to confirm the news that so many fans have been waiting for – the Jonas Brothers are returning to the UK and playing the Ball. We’re only just getting started and we can’t wait to reveal yet more huge acts for the UK’s hottest summer party on Capital Breakfast with Roman Kemp tomorrow morning!”