Halsey has signed with Columbia Records, Variety has confirmed. The move comes just two months after the singer parted ways with her longtime label, Capitol Music Group.
The move actually reunites Halsey, who uses she/they pronouns, with the label behind one of the two biggest hits of their career: “Closer,” the Chainsmokers song featuring her on co-lead vocals, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for some 12 weeks in 2016. Halsey also reached No. 1 in 2018 with “Without You.”
Halsey first signed with Capitol’s Astralwerks imprint in 2013 and quickly became one of the company’s hottest acts. Yet their fierce independent streak — she often tells a story about a label exec saying she wasn’t ready to make an album, so she asked her fans via Twitter whether they wanted one, to rapturous response — often put them at odds with it.
Last year, Halsey went public with another dispute with the company (possibly with its consent), this time about demands for TikTok content. Although it seemed to end peacefully at the time, apparently the singer’s team was negotiating an exit strategy. Halsey’s last track released through Capitol was “Die 4 Me,” a solo version of a song they previously cut as a duet with Post Malone, was released in February.
All four of Halsey’s albums have reached either No. 1 or No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The first three, “Badlands,” “Hopeless Fountain Kingdom” and “Manic” were all certified double-platinum. The artist’s last album, released in August 2021, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power,” produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, found Halsey new favoritism among critics and other tastemakers, even as it didn’t produce the same commercial results as the previous three.
Additional reporting by Chris Willman.
