American pop star Halsey is first artists confirmed to perform at the 2019 ARIA Awards
American pop star Halsey will be back in Australia for the ARIA Awards. But first she has to sort out a global culinary war.
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American pop gamechanger Halsey will have to sort out a global culinary war before she gets back here to perform at the 2019 ARIA Awards next month.
The Graveyard singer and songwriter kicked off a social media showdown last week between her preferred peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Australia’s kid’s party favourite fairy bread last week.
Halsey was unaware the enjoyment of the unusual combination of peanut butter and jelly was limited to America and was deluged with thousands of “eww” responses from fans around the world as she enjoyed the late-night sandwich snack.
And then an Australian fan enlightened her to the existence of fairy bread.
“I thought PB and J was a universal thing. And you put sprinkles on your bread. I don’t know if I can trust a country that puts butter and sprinkles on bread,” she said.
“I feel like it would taste like a crayon.”
Apart from hating on a revered national dish, Halsey has been a lover of all things Australian since launching her debut album Badlands in 2015.
Both that record and the 2017 follow-up Hopeless Fountain Kingdom peaked at No. 2 on the ARIA charts.
She has enjoyed five top 10 hits including Closer, her collaboration with Chainsmokers which was the biggest song in Australia in 2016.
“I have a lot of old friends who are Australian artists, Alison Wonderland, 5 Seconds of Summer and Troye Sivan, who opened for a couple of shows of mine back in the day. And Amy Shark and Tones and I, that song is so unique and refreshing and very cool,” she said.
“(Dance Monkey) is dominating alternative radio in the US which is huge because that format is so male-dominated — about 86 out of the 100 songs on the playlists are men.
“It is amazing to have a female voice dominating alternative radio; that’s where I started before pop radio would play me.”
Halsey has been at the vanguard of the new pop wave for the past five years, changing her sound and her look from single to single while using the platform afforded by her popularity to advocate for gender equality and mental health.
“In the beginning it was kinda hard to convince people that changing my hair and my sound every week could be my thing,” she said.
“I kept doing it and it really paid off. For the early years of my career no one would play me on the radio and now I am the most played artist in America which is really frickin’ cool.”
Halsey will not only add star power on the ARIA red carpet but use the visit to spruik her headlining spot on the annual Falls Festival which still has tickets available and the Janaury release of her third record Manic.
It is unusual for the ARIA Award organisers to announce an international guest performer ahead of the local line-up.
With the nominations released last week, you can count on Tones and I scoring one of the coveted performance slots as she will be back in the country from her US shows and in between dates on the Spilt Milk festival when the awards hit Sydney on November 27.
Other artists whose reps would be lobbying for a spot include Thelma Plum, the Teskey Brothers, Rufus Du Sol, Hilltop Hoods and of course, the host Guy Sebastian, who was also nominated for four awards.