Badlands

Badlands is the third album I have listened to and officially ranked. Additionally, it is the first album of Halsey's I have listened to. This was the debut album of Halsey and it was released on August 28, 2015. The album had three singles: "New Americana", "Colors", and "Castle". They are all certified platinum by the RIAA. "New Americana" peaked at #60 on the Billboard Hot 100 while "Colors" and "Castle" peaked at #8 and #1 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 respectively. "Ghost" and "Hurricane", which also appear on this album, were on the 2014 release of the Room 93 EP. They are both certified platinum by the RIAA. The album peaked at #2 (blocked by The Weeknd's Beauty Behind the Madness) on the Billboard 200 with 115,000 units sold and is certified platinum by the RIAA as of September 7, 2016.

Song Rankings

 * 1) Roman Holiday
 * 2) Control
 * 3) Colors
 * 4) Gasoline
 * 5) Ghost
 * 6) Castle
 * 7) Strange Love
 * 8) Hold Me Down
 * 9) New Americana
 * 10) Hurricane
 * 11) Haunting
 * 12) Young God
 * 13) Drive
 * 14) Coming Down
 * 15) I Walk the Line

Review
I discovered Halsey's existence through the Wawanakwa Central Wiki (as well as Melanie Martinez), so I decided to listen to both of their albums because people were talking about how good these albums were. This is the better one of the two. Halsey being able to transition from this "indie" pop into the mainstream especially after "Closer" is great and I wish for the rest of her career to be doing well as "Without Me" right now. Anyways, this album is really good. "Control" is my favorite because of its haunting production and creepy/Halloween-y atmosphere as well as its lyrical content talking about insanity. "Gasoline" is a solid 2nd place for the lyrical content too, but "Control" takes over because I just indulge into that song so much further. They're certified gold & platinum respectively for a REASON. That's what the whole album kind of (...?) feels like, a post-apocalypse distopia. I personally prefer "Hopeless Fountain Kingdom", but this still has a good chunk of really good songs that have aged well since its release. I don't quite fully understand the true concept of it besides the distopia part but whatever I liked it a lot. [8/10]