Billie is a queen, just let me start off by saying that. At the age of 17, she is one of the youngest artists, if not the youngest artist, in the music industry today. According to a recent CNN article, Eilish is “the first artist born in the 2000s to hit No. 1,” thanks to her debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” She’s also slaying the Billboard charts with many of her songs that have reached the top 10 in the Hot 100 chart.
Not to mention that she has a unique voice, sound, style, and identity that make her unlike any other artist that I have heard recently. Her singing is so soft and angelic although her subjects and visuals tend to be spookish and slightly haunting. Meanwhile, her background tracks are an interesting mix of background instruments and EDM sounds. If I had to describe the genre that Billie fits into, it’s almost like a dark pop genre. Eilish claimed in a Rolling Stone interview that “she endured recurring night terrors while recording the album.”
I think what I admire most about Billie and her music is that it is raw and emotional and real without any autotune used or needed in her songs. She sings what she wants to sing and not what she thinks the audience wants to hear. She’s genuine, authentic, and original, and finding artists like that nowadays can sometimes be like finding a diamond in the rough. She’s also humble and down to earth and we see this a lot in her past interviews.
Speaking of recently, a few weeks ago Billie dropped her long-anticipated debut album titled “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”. Prior to her latest album’s release, Billie released an EP titled “Don’t Smile at Me” in 2017. The album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” contains a total of 12 songs with each varying in tone and subject while still staying true to Billie’s essence. Each song encaptures its own identity while still working cohesively as an album.
In no particular order, the list of songs on her album include.
-
!!!!!!!
-
bad guy
-
xanny
-
you should see me in a crown
-
all good girls go to hell
-
wish you were gay
-
when the party’s over
-
8
-
my strange addiction
-
bury a friend
-
ilomilo
-
listen before i go
-
i love you
-
goodbye
If you’d like to give the album a listen, here is a link to the Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/album/0S0KGZnfBGSIssfF54WSJh?si=MBodm4TuRhu8Qoyr4KsrGA
In this first section of the review, I will break down the lighthearted opening of the album “!!!!!!!” as well as the first two songs on the album “bad guy” and “xanny.” These both vary in tone, with “bad guy” being a fun song to dance to whereas “xanny” is slower and heavier in tone. Continue reading for a full breakdown of the songs in this section of my album review for “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”.
- !!!!!!!
-
In the intro to her album, Eilish jokingly says “I have taken out my Invisalign and this is the album” followed by laughter. By opening the album in this way it humanized her as a person just like the rest of us instead of a famous pop star.
Leading up to her album’s release, there was a lot of pressure on her from social media and the music industry. This pressure has been the norm as her success and popularity have accumulated over the years, starting with her release of “Ocean Eyes” at the age of 14.
The intro served as a clever way to add comedic relief and ease people into the album while also presenting her as a down to earth human being.
- bad guy
-
bad guy is interesting because Eilish talks about what makes typical bad guys but then claims that she’s the bad guy. It’s a playful song with a bass-heavy track in the background in which Eilish portrays herself as having a tough nature.
We see with the lyrics in the chorus,
“So you’re a tough guy/ Like it really rough guy/ Just can’t get enough guy/ Chest always so puffed guy/ I’m that bad type/ Make your mama sad type/ Make your girlfriend mad tight/ Might seduce your dad type/ I’m the bad guy/ Duh”
She talks about the typical “bad guy” in the first few lines and then uses the line “I’m that bad type” to talk about herself as this “bad guy”.
One of my favorite lines in the song is when she sings the lyric“I’m the bad guy/ Duh” because it adds a teenage youthfulness to the track and you can imagine the eye roll when she says “Duh.”
A lyric in the song that gets overlooked is the lyrics “My mommy likes to sing along with me/ But she won’t sing this song/ If she reads all the lyrics/ She’ll pity the men I know”
This line is a little disheartening because it seems Eilish, unfortunately, hasn’t had the best of luck with love and guys she knows tend to be bad.
- xanny
-
This is one of the songs on the album that people tend to like the least due to the bass-heavy track and almost monsterish electric sounding vibrations that come in after the first verse and comprise the lyrics in the chorus.
Other parts of the song are very softly sung with instruments like the piano and electric guitar strums. I think the song offsets two different moods by juggling between the bass-heavy track and instrumentals.
In a recent Genius article Eilish claimed that “I have never done drugs, I’ve never smoked anything in my life, I know people around you doing that shit makes you want to, but you don’t have to, the song’s message is less ‘don’t do drugs’; it’s more ‘be safe’. I don’t want my friends to die anymore.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, Xanax is used “to relieve symptoms of anxiety, including anxiety caused by depression.” Pop culture has referenced it at an increasing rate in the past several years, most notably in rap songs.
The song serves as a way to highlight the harmful implication of drug use but specifically the use of the drug Xanax.