Halsey recently celebrated their new album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power being nominated for a Grammy Award and, in a new interview, reveled in a new honor — being next year’s recipient of the BandLab NME Innovation Award.

Speaking with NME, the singer explained why they were validated by the nod, because they are being rewarded for never being complacent with their craft.

Halsey explained, “I’ve always been driven to reinvent myself and reinvent my genre,” which fed their willingness to take risks with their work.  

The 27-year-old recalled the “super liberating” epiphany they had when creating 2020’s Manic, saying it showed them they don’t have to be confined to pop music.  That realization set the bar for their pandemic-era album IICHLIWP, which further “challenge[d] me as a creative.”

“It was an opportunity to take advantage of the state of the world, the state that I was in and the state of music, and try something that was going to challenge me and try something that, commercially speaking, a lot of people would have perceived as a bit of a risk,” they recalled.

Adds Halsey, “Nothing has changed about my music except for the people who are producing it” — nodding to Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross — “I still wrote every word on this album – every song, every lyric, every melody came from me and the same can be said about all my previous records.”

So, where is Halsey going next?  They say fans will have to wait for another album because IICHLIWP “fulfilled me so much creatively that, truth be told, it’s probably going to be a while until I put out an album again.”

Halsey promised to “keep my creative muscles sharp” by releasing singles and collaborations.

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