The 2010s File Feature
Not Afraid Anymore
"Not Afraid Anymore" — Halsey Fifty Shades and the New Artist Opportunity Soundtrack placement has long been one of pop music's more reliable launch pads, an…
01 The Story
"Not Afraid Anymore" — Halsey
Fifty Shades and the New Artist Opportunity
Soundtrack placement has long been one of pop music's more reliable launch pads, and when Fifty Shades Darker arrived in February 2017 trailing enormous commercial expectations, the artists attached to its soundtrack understood the platform they were being given. Halsey, who by early 2017 had released her debut album Badlands and was building toward what would become her breakthrough record hopeless fountain kingdom, contributed "Not Afraid Anymore" to the soundtrack in a choice that aligned her emerging artistic persona with the film's themes in ways that felt organic rather than forced.
The Fifty Shades franchise had, by its second installment, become a reliable commercial engine for its contributing artists. The first film's soundtrack had generated major hits including The Weeknd's "Earned It," which had turned into one of his signature songs. The second film carried similar commercial expectations, and artists including Halsey, Tove Lo, and Nick Jonas contributed material that ranged from the explicitly themed to more general pop fare. Halsey's entry leaned toward the former, making it one of the more sonically adventurous entries on the compilation.
Sound and Production
Musically, "Not Afraid Anymore" occupied the dark synth-pop zone that Halsey had established as her primary territory on Badlands. The production, atmospheric and beat-forward, provided a sonic environment suited both to the film's aesthetic and to Halsey's vocal style, which operated in a range between delicate and forceful that could travel across both intimate and arena-sized contexts. The song was co-written by Halsey along with producers including Dagny, contributing to a track that felt grounded in genuine creative investment rather than purely transactional soundtrack work.
The thematic fit between Halsey's sonic identity and the Fifty Shades Darker context was more than superficial. The Badlands album had established a persona marked by intensity, emotional extremity, and a fascination with power dynamics in relationships, all of which resonated with the film's subject matter. "Not Afraid Anymore" extends these themes explicitly, using the soundtrack context as permission to lean further into content that might have required more framing in a standalone release context.
Billboard Performance
On the Billboard Hot 100, "Not Afraid Anymore" debuted and peaked at number 77 on February 4, 2017, spending one week on the chart. The chart appearance reflected the soundtrack-driven consumption spike that accompanied the film's opening weekend, with listeners who had seen the film or engaged with its promotional material seeking out the music they had heard in that context. Soundtrack singles in the streaming era often followed this pattern: a sharp initial surge tied to the film's theatrical window followed by a rapid decline as attention moved on.
The single-week chart run places it in the category of cultural markers rather than sustained commercial successes, but its presence on the Hot 100 at all reflects the scale of attention the Fifty Shades Darker release generated.
Halsey's Trajectory in Early 2017
The contribution to the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack arrived at a strategically significant moment in Halsey's career. Her debut album Badlands, released in 2015, had performed well critically and commercially, establishing her as a genuine artist rather than a flash-in-the-pan blog buzz phenomenon. Hopeless fountain kingdom, which would drop in June 2017, was building anticipation as her sophomore effort. In this context, "Not Afraid Anymore" served multiple purposes: it maintained her commercial visibility in the months before her next album, and it demonstrated the range of her artistic identity beyond what Badlands had established.
The choice to participate in the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack also reflected a willingness to engage publicly with subject matter that many pop artists might have approached more cautiously, a quality consistent with the directness and willingness to provoke that had characterized Halsey's public persona from early in her career.
The Soundtrack Single as Career Move
Viewed within the full arc of Halsey's development as an artist, "Not Afraid Anymore" functions as a period document from the transition between her first and second album cycles. It demonstrates the dark pop aesthetic she had established, the thematic territory she was willing to explore, and the commercial instincts that led her to align with a high-profile cultural moment. Hopeless fountain kingdom arrived in June 2017 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, confirming that the visibility she had maintained through the Fifty Shades Darker contribution had served its purpose. Press play and hear an artist in the specific moment of knowing exactly what she is and where she is going.
"Not Afraid Anymore" — Halsey's singular moment on the 2010s charts.
02 Song Meaning
"Not Afraid Anymore" — Courage, Desire, and the Politics of Vulnerability
Fear as the Departure Point
The title "Not Afraid Anymore" establishes a before and after. There was a state of fear, and the song documents arrival at its opposite. What gives the declaration emotional weight is the implied acknowledgment of the fear itself: this is not a song about someone who was never afraid, but about someone who was afraid and chose to move through it anyway. That distinction matters for how the song lands, because courage without prior fear is not courage but simply absence of imagination. The emotional core of the track is the transformation from constrained to liberated, and that arc resonates precisely because it maps onto something universally recognizable.
In the specific context of the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack, "not afraid anymore" refers at least partly to the particular vulnerabilities that intimacy and desire require. But the lyrical construction is deliberately open enough to accommodate broader interpretations, which is part of what allowed the song to function outside the purely promotional context of the film.
Halsey's Thematic Consistency
Viewed across her catalog, "Not Afraid Anymore" fits within a thematic preoccupation that runs throughout Halsey's work: the negotiation between vulnerability and power in intimate relationships. Her Badlands era had established a persona defined by emotional intensity and willingness to explore the darker and more complicated aspects of desire and connection without the softening filters that much pop music applies to these subjects. "Not Afraid Anymore" extends this exploration into more explicitly sensual territory, using the soundtrack context as a frame that granted permission for directness.
The progression from "afraid" to "not afraid" in the context of desire is also a statement about self-knowledge. The narrator understands what she wants and has moved past the internal resistance that once made that wanting feel dangerous or shameful. This is a mature emotional stance, and the song's delivery captures it without apology.
The Soundtrack Context and Its Liberations
Film soundtracks have long served as spaces where pop artists can explore territory that might require more justification as a standalone artistic choice. The Fifty Shades franchise, whatever its literary reputation, provided a commercial context that explicitly invited music engaging with themes of desire, power, and liberation. For Halsey, that context was both opportunity and genuine thematic alignment. She was not arriving at this subject matter as a departure from her established artistic identity but as an extension of it.
The fact that the most critically discussed Fifty Shades soundtrack entry from the first film, The Weeknd's "Earned It," had become a genuine career-defining moment demonstrated that the franchise context could produce serious artistic work rather than purely mercenary output. Halsey's contribution aimed at a similar level of genuine engagement with the material.
Fear, Gender, and Audacity in Pop
The specific fear being conquered in "Not Afraid Anymore" has a gendered dimension worth acknowledging. Women expressing desire directly and without apology has historically been treated as culturally transgressive in ways that male expression of the same desires is not. Halsey's consistent willingness to occupy this territory directly contributed to her identity as an artist who operated outside conventional pop-femininity constraints. The song participates in a longer tradition of female pop artists claiming the right to desire openly, from Madonna through to contemporaries like Cardi B and Doja Cat.
That tradition carries real cultural weight beyond its entertainment value. Music that normalizes women's active desire, as opposed to passive receptivity, contributes to shifting cultural expectations in ways that extend beyond individual songs or careers. "Not Afraid Anymore" belongs to this lineage.
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