Halsey Accuses Alternative Radio Of Being Biased Against Female Musicians

Noted basketball fan Halsey has made some of the biggest pop songs of the past decade, but there’s also a strong alternative influence in some of her material (she featured on a surprise EP from Bring Me The Horizon last year, for example). Now she’s going to bat for alternative female musicians by attesting that they get the short end of the stick in terms of airplay.

A former morning host and program director for Radio 104.5/Philadelphia known as just Johnny tweeted this morning, “2020 #Alternative music is having major identity crisis. Just turned on @amazonmusic ‘new Alt playlist’ and heard @deftones into @taylorswift13 into @halsey WTF?” That caught Halsey’s attention, as she responded, “Of the last 89 songs 104.5 has played on their station, 3 of them were female lead artists. 2 others had female band members. Is Alt music the crisis or is it Alt program directors ???????”

Another Twitter user responded to Halsey, “imagine not thinking some of your music leans alt… people really need to open their minds to the amazing range of music artists are putting out these days.” Halsey replied, “not even talking about my music! My music is largely considered pop rn. But it wasn’t in the beginning + that fight with ALT stations wasn’t fun. I’m bummed alt radio won’t embrace incredible new alt female artists bc they secretly hate teenage girls listening to their platform.”

Johnny clarified his stance by retweeting somebody who wrote, “You’re reading this as a commentary on Taylor, when it’s not. It’s a commentary on ALT’s inability to develop their own artists.” He responded to that, “Nailed it. Folkore is a great album, but NOT Alternative despite working with some very credible & Alt artists.”

Meanwhile, Halsey celebrated her 26th birthday a few days ago, and she marked the occasion by releasing a new deluxe edition of Manic, which includes — ahem — alternative versions of some of the album’s tracks.