Finding a pop song about love is as easy as finding water in the ocean. Just about every artist from every genre, pop and beyond, has penned entire albums worth of songs about love and heartbreak, lust and romance. But finding a pop song about love in the LGBTQ community requires a lot more work. Scan the Billboard charts starting today and going back decades and you may only find a handful.
Thankfully, Halsey and Fifth Harmony’s Lauren Jauregui have finally given fans a pop song for people who don’t often see themselves represented in top 40 music.
Dropping their new duet “Strangers” today, Halsey and Jauregui have delivered a beautifully dark and emotional pro-LGBTQ love song that is long overdue.
During a recent interview with the Zach Sang Show, Halsey said “I just love that Lauren and I are two women who have a mainstream pop presence doing a love song for the LGBTQ community. It’s unheard of. It’s very rare to see it from a female perspective.”
Halsey goes on to say that she contacted Jauregui for the track not only for her strong vocals, but because like Halsey, Jauregui has been open about her bisexuality.
“I was thinking to myself, if I want this song to be believable, it needs to be real, so I’m not going to put a girl on the song to sing who’s straight,” said Halsey. “I’m just not going to do it. So I reached out to Lauren, and she came in and she cut the vocal and it sounds awesome. Our voices sound really cool together because we both have really raspy voices. Mine’s a little more delicate than hers. Hers is like really powerful and big and raspy, and mine is kind of like light and raspy. But it’s really cool.”
Halsey teased the new duet earlier this week, releasing the album art for the single, which shows three playing cards taped together to symbolize the song’s message of holding onto a relationship that is falling apart. The new song is part of Halsey’s upcoming sophomore album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, a follow-up to 2015’s Badlands.
Halsey has already released the tracklisting for her upcoming album, which in addition to her duet with Jauregui also features guest appearances from Quavo and Cashmere Cat. In addition to “Strangers,” Halsey has already premiered the tracks “Now or Never” and “Eyes Closed.”
Hopeless Fountain Kingdom will be released on Friday, June 2.
