James Rettig, writing at Stereogum:
While playing a snippet of a new song, Halsey wrote: “Basically, I have a song that I love that I want to release ASAP, but my record label won’t let me. I’ve been in this industry for eight years and I’ve sold over 165 million records and my record company is saying I can’t release it unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok.”
Some might speculate … that this is exactly the sort of viral TikTok this song would “need” to be released. Halsey says that’s not the case. When someone pointed that out in the comments, they responded: “Bruh I wish it was haha. They just said I have to post tiktoks they didn’t specifically say ‘about what’ so here I am.”