Halsey’s ‘Bad At Love’ Joins The Spotify Billions Club
The singer’s 2017 single has surpassed a billion streams, affirming its place among Spotify’s biggest hits.
Listeners love “Bad At Love.” Halsey’s 2017 single has surpassed a billion streams on Spotify, joining the platform’s illustrious Billions Club. It’s Halsey’s sixth song to reach the billion-stream benchmark following “Closer” with the Chainsmokers, “Eastside” with Benny Blanco and Khalid, “Without Me,” “Boy With Luv” with BTS, and “Him & I” with G-Eazy.
“Bad At Love” first appeared on Halsey’s sophomore album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, released eight years ago this month on June 2, 2017. In August of that year, the song became the album’s second single, followed soon after by a video directed by Halsey and Sing J Lee. By January 2018, “Bad At Love” had risen to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her highest-charting hit up to that point. “Bad At Love” eventually went 8× Platinum in the US and was honored at the Teen Choice Awards and iHeartRadio Much Music Video Awards.
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Halsey co-wrote “Bad At Love” with Justin Tranter and the track’s two producers, Ricky Reed and Rogét Chahayed. “I was halfway through a breakup, sitting on my couch, eating ice cream, chocolate chip cookie dough, watching Romeo & Juliet over and over again on the TV, probably not showering as much as I should have,” she told Billboard in a 2017 video about the song’s creation. During that phase, she found a box of mementos from past romantic relationships, causing her to reflect on her own role in messing them up.
In the Billboard video, Halsey recalls telling Reed, “I really want this song to sound like Leonardo DiCaprio in a Hawaiian T-shirt in a droptop yellow convertible car, driving down the highway like in Miami Vice with all his friends — just like youthful and reckless, like Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet.” After a few rounds of back and forth with the producer, she got the sound she desired.
Producers including Dillon Francis, Hook N Sling, Klangkarussell, Autograf, and Generik later remixed “Bad At Love,” helping it reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs and Dance/Mix Show Airplay charts.
