Halsey is claiming that she is “not allowed” to make another album after The Great Impersonator didn’t reach her label’s commercial expectations. The singer’s release of her album titled The Great Impersonator disappointed her label after the album didn’t peak to platinum or gold. Now in a recent interview, Halsey says that she is not allowed to release a new album. 

A year ago, Halsey released her album The Great Impersonator, where she critiqued the music industry, spoke on her own legacy and the medical struggles that almost killed her. 

While it peaked at #2 like most other Halsey albums, The Great Impersonator has not been certified platinum or even gold. Only one of its singles made it onto the Hot 100, the #88-peaking “Lucky”, according to Stereogum. 

A new Halsey interview with Zane Lowe was published on Apple Music’s YouTube channel Thursday, September 18th. Focusing on the 10th anniversary of Halsey’s debut album Badlands, Lowe talks about how he’s a dedicated fan who wants to keep following Halsey’s music all the way to “album 52.” 

In the interview, Halsey says, “I can’t make an album right now. I can’t make an album right now. I’m not allowed to. I can’t make an album right now. . . It’s the reality because The Great Impersonator didn’t perform the way they thought it was going to.”

And if I’m being honest with you, the album sold 100,000 fucking copies the first week. That’s a lot of copies, especially for an artist who hasn’t had a hit in a long time. The tour’s the highest selling tour of my entire career. But they want Manic numbers from me. Everyone wants Manic numbers from me. I can’t do that every single time. It should be good enough that I do it once in a while. But it’s not. It’s not. And what would be considered a success for most artists, a success story — 100,000 albums first week, in an era when we don’t sell physical music, OK? With no radio hit. Nothing. But it’s a failure in the context of the kind of success that I’ve had previously.” 

The singer goes on a bit longer, defending her numbers and her place as a pop singer. She also highlights the support she gets from her fans, while pointing out that she has not gotten this same support from her record label. In fact, in a tweet Thursday night, Halsey said her label Columbia did not pay for the high-concept photo shoots from the recent album’s promo campaign.