Hi everyone, Anthony Fantano here, internet's busiest music nerd. Hope you're doing well. And it's time to talk about the most hated and controversial review I have on this YouTube channel. My review of Halsey's "The Great Impersonator."

Now, I'm no stranger to takes I've given on this channel dogging me for years. And sometimes the very persistent fan comments and reactions will cause me to go back and listen to the record again. This can result in reactions where I more or less feel justified in my feelings and circle back around to give my thoughts more thoroughly. But sometimes I do actually change my mind with a little or a lot of audience pressure.

Generally speaking, though, this is a pretty rare occasion, as I've put out thousands of reviews over the years on this channel — literally — and I still stand 10 toes down for the vast majority of all of them. My point is, there have been lots and lots of examples of viewers being unhappy with a certain take I've given, which is fine. I'm not right about everything, and at the end of the day, I'm mostly stating my preferences. The debate around the Halsey review doesn't feel like it's coming down to just a subjective misalignment on what we think feels or sounds good when it comes to music we're listening to.

It has less to do with that and more to do with the content of my character, which, in the eyes of this review's many detractors, is that I'm evil. An evil misogynist bully who exists purely to attack women, or a woman dealing with a severe illness, specifically in this case. For context, Halsey recently commendably fought lupus, a process she says took 8 years from those initial symptoms that regularly impacted her well-being and health to finally getting the diagnosis and chemo treatments needed for a more stable and comfortable life.

Now, attacks on my character over a music review are also nothing new to me. For more times than I can count, people have tried to put my musical preferences down as something severely wrong with me. He's not mentally all there. He's a bigot. He's Italian. Which is not something I usually get too in the weeds on, but this is one of the few occasions where it has made headlines. I'm not just simply coming on here to inflate the importance of a few unhinged Twitter stans, because these are now sentiments that have been echoed by Halsey herself.

Who cares he gave a bad review? I care that a pay for clicks reaction YouTuber can facade as a pro critic and say it’s “main character syndrome” for an artist to lament her medical suffering on an album (surprise!) about her own life. He’s a raised-by-4chan edgelord bully. Yuck.

— halsey (@halsey) June 22, 2026

So, I'm an edgelord bully raised by 4chan who said it was main character syndrome to lament your sickness. Let's get directly into that last one there, since it deals in the review itself, and also saves me and you the time of having to go over the entire video. Because for a few years now, her fans have been making a very clear black-and-white statement about what I say in this piece of content. That I said the music on this album reflected a main character syndrome, a self-obsession or overinflation of one's abilities due to – or because of – Halsey's decision to sing about her own medical suffering.

So let's watch the clip together where I say that specific phrase to verify that. All right. Here we are, ready to watch this clip, so let's do it.

"When she sings about needing to kill her ego because, it may in fact kill her, she was not kidding, because this entire record has the worst case of main character syndrome I've heard on any pop album in 2024. Not only due to the fact—"

Okay, it is true, around the 7-minute mark in the review, I do actually say that phrase. Lock 'em up. Throw away the key. I'm guilty. And look, it's totally fair for you as a viewer to decide whether or not that's a fair assessment of the album and its writing, or even if that's language that's too harsh for a review generally. But what you can't do is tell me why I'm saying the things I'm saying, especially when I have told you guys why I've said them. I didn't just merely say, "Oh, this album has main character syndrome," because immediately after this I say, "Not only due to the fact," meaning this assessment I have just made of the album is because of things I'm about to list out and describe.

So, let's go over this list of problems I have with the album.

"Not only due to the fact that this record subjects listeners to multiple indulgent cuts that sound like messy demos and just would not make it onto a more respectable release that was actually well-conceptualized."

Okay, so my first issue that I list is multiple indulgent tracks with draft-quality production or subpar production that again would not make it onto an album that had maybe a bit more effort or focus being put in on the production and recording sid. Which Halsey has proven herself to be capable of before, most notably on her last record, prior to this one, which I, for the most part, gave a positive review.

I mean, I understand as a hardcore fan why one might want to listen to tracks that are draft quality. That's fine. But if they end up making the final cut on an album, you can't really be surprised when a reviewer takes issue with that.

Reading some of the top comments of the review itself, I kinda got the sense that because of the life experience informing this album, that many of Halsey's fans would have allowed for pretty much this album to have or contain just about anything musically or sonically. Which again is fine if that's your preference, but your average reviewer is going to be more critical and much harsher when it comes to songs on that quality level. And again, I'm sorry, just allowing for anything because of the backstory of the album is just a very lowbrow way of engaging with art.

All that being said, though, taking issue with the production quality and performance quality on some of these tracks has nothing to do with Halsey's illness. So, at the very least, here, I did not cite that as my reasoning for saying the album has "main character syndrome."

Let's keep fishing and see if I do that.

"So yeah, it's that and also all of the lyrics on this record where it seems like Halsey is just hell-bent on making sure the audience knows just how dark and tortured and edgy she is."

Okay, the next issue that I cite is that the quality of the lyricism on the album can run a little bit edgy. Which I could see viewers as interpreting me going at what Halsey is literally singing about as a topic or a source of inspiration. That is, if I didn't actually cite an example of lyrics whose writing was particularly bad.

"They say all dogs go to heaven. Well, what about a bitch? What about an evil girl left lying in a ditch?"

This is, like, not great lyricism. I think it's pretty clear that my problem with these words is not the topic of mortality, but the way the topic is being written about. While it is true, I certainly could have cited more examples to maybe be a little bit clearer about what I was getting at. Even without that, off of this clip alone, it's kind of hard for, at least me in my mind, to jump to the conclusion, "Oh, he hates that this woman sang about being sick."

Let's see if I cite anything else here in terms of a problem or an issue.

"Halsey doesn't really seem interested in these styles of music for their aesthetics or what made them creative. Really, she only seems to be using them as a means of laundering untold amounts of childish angst and expecting us to sit here and wonder at it. Just marvel at how mediocre it is at genre switching and making songs that sound absolutely nothing like the artists that supposedly inspired them."

Okay, I'm going to close that there so my laptop can stop whirring. But yeah, last issue that I cited was the mediocre genre-switching across the album, which was a pretty core focus for me in the review. Because if you recall, a pivotal part of this album's PR rollout was Halsey styling herself as these different iconic, influential, mega-talented artists across different eras of popular music. Something that I guess would have been fine if we were talking about photos and photos alone, but Halsey actually attempted to recreate and embody the sounds of any of these artists within the tracklist of this album, and fell horribly, horribly short.

Now, it is true, in retrospect I have a better understanding of how this plays into Halsey's experience with her health, specifically with regards to lupus. But that doesn't make the process of listening to these songs any more interesting, or Halsey's impressions any better. Not only that, but this is not a signifier that I, as a reviewer, had any issue with Halsey singing about her illness, because that's not what assessing something as bad musical cosplay is.

Okay, so we watched the clip, and I'm sorry, but the allegation that I said the album had main character syndrome because Halsey was sick or decided to sing about being sick is bullshit and stupid. So then why is it that people have been running with that exact narrative for 2 whole years? Maybe 'cause it's easier to characterize a review as evil and having nothing to do with the quality of the art at all than it is to come to grips with your favorite dropping an album that maybe you don't really listen to that much.

Could it be my dislike of this album has nothing to do with the pain that inspired it, and just that I think the music stinks? Could it be that making art about important topics doesn't make it important art? Thank you, St. Vincent. Could it be that positive reviews aren't de facto feminism, just like negative reviews aren't de facto misogyny?

And look, it's still fine to disagree, or even have comments or disagreements on how the review was written or formulated. I know the review is not perfect. No review is. There's actually a whole range of criticisms you could make of this review that are valid, and I'm more or less fine with because they don't involve making me public enemy number one.

And could I have made more of a focus on Halsey's personal experience in the review itself? Sure, yes. But it wasn't really driving most of my feelings on the album, and I don't think that would have stopped people from getting angry with me. After all, many of y'all have a tendency to attach my less-than-glowing feelings on any given album to the most taboo topics held within that record when I do address them, as evidenced by this very popular Fiona Apple fan fiction where someone imagines me getting triggered listening to the lyrics.

So I'm fine saying that focusing simply on my feelings toward the music itself as opposed to the record's backstory may have been an omission out of fear on some level. But that's not proof I hate women or am endangering or striking fear in the hearts of ill women across the world. That's just a fantastical level of cartoonish evil that makes no sense. I'm sorry to my core viewers who may have felt that the review wasn't up to the standard they expect.

Which brings me to Halsey's and her fandom's characterization of me as a bully, an edgelord, which is not just untrue but, in my view, performative and cynical. Because Halsey isn't pointing out a danger here. What she's trying to do is delegitimize a critic, which is something she has a history of doing. Like with this Pitchfork tweet.

Whoops, accidental 9/11 joke there.

But hey, it was a joke; she was just playing around. She apologized for it. It's fine.

And okay, Halsey doesn't like being criticized that much. Who does? No big deal. What concerns me more, though, and what Halsey to my knowledge, has not really explained, is does she still kiss her fans? Or let me put it this way: does Halsey still kiss any of her fans on the mouth without verifying their age? Or even without explicit consent? When did Halsey stop kissing fans?

"I know Halsey used to do this because fans wanted Help to come out and because fans wanted her to be their first kiss. Does anyone have any info about why this stopped?

"She has multiple autoimmune diseases, so with her compromised immune system, it's a bad idea. She apparently will often do it anyway if you ask her because she doesn't want to let people down."

Okay, you know what? These posts were 7 years ago. Maybe this is just, uh, fandom rumors of stuff that used to go on at meet-and-greets or behind the scenes or something. Surely there's no photos of this— Oh my god, there's actually photos of this.

There's actually so many photos of this.

Way, way too many photos of this.

Why are there so many pictures? There's a whole account dedicated to this? (all the most have recently been removed.)

And some of these people look so young, I'm not even going to show their faces.

But what's weirder is that a lot of her fans defend it.

"Let's start with the major issue ARMY have with Halsey. 1) Did she kiss minors without consent? Does she still do it? Yes and no. People under 18 are referred to as minors, so in a way she did do it. But the most important thing is she never forced anyone to do it. It was something the fans asked for, for photographs. In the USA, the age of consent for a kiss is 13, and most Halsey fans were over 13, so they gave consent to be kissed."

I feel like when you're posting the age of consent for a kiss, you're moving in the wrong direction, spiritually. Of course, this person also has a big problem with my Halsey review here that we're talking about. Do a bad review, you don't deserve art. Kiss a minor, you're totally cool.

What's crazy is that a lot of this, as I looked into it further, isn't even super obscure information. Because I guess the BTS Army was blowing Halsey up for this stuff around 2019, 2020, with tweets like this getting covered in Paper magazine.

"I keep promising underage fans that I'm gonna make out with them. I am so going to jail." - Halsey

But you know what, um, maybe like, uh, all the kisses were, uh, consensual or something. Can we least have that as a saving grace.

"I just made out with Halsey."

"Well, I was taking a video because Halsey was literally holding my hand, then she randomly kissed me!!!!! Sorry you're jealous."

Okay, so I guess Halsey randomly kissed this person at a show, just randomly, probably a peck on the cheek or something, nothing big.

Oh. Wow.

That's a whole lot to be doing for a random kiss with a total stranger just because they're a fan at your show. But you know what? It's just like one picture, and maybe this is all a misunderstanding. It's not like there's a video testimonial or anything of someone saying they were kissed by Halsey without explicit permission.

"And for today's video, I thought I'd tell you guys a story behind my first kiss. If you couldn't tell by the title, my first kiss was with Halsey."

Uh-oh.

Okay, so for context, this person says in the description of the video they are 19. The video was posted in 2016 and they claim this whole incident went down 2 years earlier in 2014, so you do the math.

"So this happened back in September of 2014, and not a lot of people really knew of Halsey. Like, she was big, but she wasn't that big. And she was on tour with the Kooks, and she was opening up for them. She tweeted a link that she was gonna have meet and greets for the show. All you had to do was purchase her Room 93 EP, and you were good to go. And that was about like $5 or something, so like $5 to meet Halsey. Why the fuck not? So we were in line and we decided that I was gonna be the first one to go and ask her, and then after me, Bailey would go and ask her. So we had our plan set, but then Halsey came out and I literally just like shit my pants. I was like, you know what, no, I can't do this. I cannot be the one to ask her. Bailey, you're gonna ask her. So it's Bailey's turn and Bailey goes up to her, talks to her, and then she's like, for the pose, can you kiss me? And Halsey's like, on the lips? And she's like, yeah, I haven't had my first kiss.' 'Blah blah blah,' and they talk about it, and Halsey's like, 'Yeah, of course.' And so they're about to take the picture, and in my head I'm just like, 'Oh my god, I'm gonna fucking kiss her. Like, this is gonna happen. Like, we did that. You see that? We did that." Like, that's what was going on in my head. Right before the picture's taken, Halsey looks at all of us and she's like, 'Hey, this is the only person I'm gonna kiss. Like, no one else after this.' And then that's literally when my heart sunk to my ass. I was just like— Okay, um, I need a new plan. Like, I go up to her when it's my turn, and like, we're talking, and I'm like, 'Hey, I was gonna ask you to be my first kiss, but you also said that you weren't gonna do that, so would you just want to kiss my cheek?' And she was totally fine with that, so she kisses my cheek, and that was our picture. And then I'm like talking to her for a bit because I drew her a picture like a month prior to the show. It was like a self-portrait of her, so I gave that to her, and we were just talking about that. After everyone took the picture, She like looks at all of us and is like, 'Hey, it was so nice meeting all you guys. Like, thank you for coming to the show and like pre-ordering the EP and meeting me and stuff.' So she walks up to me and she's like, 'Hey, I'm sorry I couldn't be your first kiss, but here you go.' Takes my face like this, kisses me, unkisses me, and then leaves. And I'm sitting there just like, 'What? Like, what the fuck just happened? Fucking Halsey just fucking kissed me.' What the fuck? Like, what the fuck?"

Yeah, what the fuck?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is circling back around to grab a total stranger teenager by the face to kiss her with no heads up or nothing whatsoever.

Now, I could take everything I just showed you here, make the worst possible assessment of Halsey and her behavior over it, post it straight to social media, but But I'm not going to do that, not only because 1) I don't believe Halsey is actually, like, a danger to society or her fans, but also, as far as I can tell, as weird as all of this is and as strange as it feels for it to be as unexplained as it is, Halsey seems to have ceased this behavior.

Still, the point of this video isn't to go at her or tear her down, but rather dispel bad faith smears about me and my content, because it doesn't take a great mind to act this way. These Twitter stans are not the brightest crayons in the box. Because if you're online making hating critics a moral act and doing these calls for accountability while turning a blind eye to this:

"Takes my face like this, kisses me, unkisses me, and then leaves. And I'm sitting there just like, 'What?'"

You are no one's moral superior, I'm sorry. You are strange and demented and are probably very much in need of therapy.

I think I've said everything I wanna say here, so I'm gonna leave it at that.

Good luck to all of you, and forever.