Halsey has released their latest single ‘So Good’, following weeks of drama which saw the US musician accuse their label of initially blocking the song in the pursuit of virality.
The disagreements between Halsey and their label began in mid May when the artist took to TikTok to reveal that they had recorded a new single but was unable to release it due to marketing constraints from Capitol Records.
“I’ve been in this industry for 8 years and I’ve sold over 165 million records and my record company is saying that I can’t release it unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok,” Halsey wrote back in May. “I just wanna release music, man. And I deserve better tbh.”
The impact of the video was rather swift, with numerous artists coming out in support of Halsey, criticising the rise of ‘digital burnout’ in an industry already filled with overworked creatives.
Halsey continued to update fans about their concerns over the marketing process in the video’s comments, explaining that it wasn’t the notion of creating TikToks that was the issue, but rather the vague instructions that came with the demand. “They just said I have to post tiktoks; they didn’t specifically say ‘about what’ so here I am,” the artist wrote.
As Pitchfork notes, the saga continued rather quickly, with Halsey tweeting that very day that their label had responded to the somewhat ironic viral nature of the TikTok video, only to give a vague answer in regards to whether the track could now be released.
Capitol Music Group spoke to Pitchfork the following day, affirming their belief in Halsey and noting that the label “can’t wait for the world to hear their brilliant new music”.
One week later, Capitol took to Twitter to tell Halsey, “we love you and are here to support you”, before revealing a release date of June 9th and addressing the ongoing controversy in a separate statement.
“We are an artist first company that encourages open dialogue,” Capitol wrote in their statement. “We have nothing but a desire to help each one of our artists succeed, and hope that we can continue to have these critical conversations.”
Following the release of the song, Halsey responded to fans on Twitter noting that “this is the biggest and best reaction to a song release I have ever seen”. An accompanying clip for the track – which Halsey claimed had already been finalised as of their original TikTok video – is expected to arrive soon.
