At only 17 years old, Billie Eilish has taken music into her hands and made it her own. With celebrities from Dave Grohl to Hayley William praising Eilish’s new album, she has not only become one of the world’s top-selling artists, but also one that countless others are talking about.
Billie and her brother Finneas created the album together, creating tracks that aren’t the typical “pop” sounds, or quite frankly the typical of any music genre. Billie does this in a way that she has essentially created a genre that only encompasses her, and now we just wait to see if others will join her wildly poetic and dark lyrics mixed with heavily modern beats. However, she still keeps some songs very simple.
Billie starts the album with the track, “!!!!!!!” which is her introducing the album and proclaiming that she is taking out her Invisalign. I think this intro is very smart as it brings her down from some wildly-famous singer to a more down to Earth person that deals with very human things.
The album then progresses to “bad guy,” which is super upbeat, yet still keeping a very creepy/Billie vibe. The video is honestly the selling point with this song and the very incredible lyric, “might seduce your dad type.”
From there it progresses to “xanny,” which in my opinion is one of the best songs on the album. With somewhat of an epidemic of prescription drug overdoses—specifically in young adult musicians—this song is basically a say no to drugs anthem. She includes the lyric, “I can’t afford to love someone who isn’t dying by mistake in Silver Lake,” which is almost a nod to her fear of losing people she knows because of their recklessness.
The album then goes into the few songs that were released prior to the full album release—all of which are super strong and still stand out on the album as being really great.
Also, check out “my strange addiction” to experience the clever way in which Billie samples quotes from none other than The Office.
Billie ends the album on a quite a different note with “listen before i go,” “i love you” and “goodbye,” all of which being nearly serene as if at peace with the album being over, yet still creepy in their own ways. It’s one of the few albums that I feel wraps up purposely at the end and it feels very coherent.
WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? is an album that every person should listen to at least once if for no other reason than to check out how much Billie and her brother Finneas are recreating music as they go. I also strongly recommend not putting this album on shuffle—it’s a great listen from beginning to end.