Tag: Billie Eilish

Posted in Album Reviews

Billie Eilish – Happier Than Ever (2021)

Posted on by Michael
Happier Than Ever

At the time, 17-year-old Billie Eilish became one of the most talked about pop stars of 2019.  Her Don’t Smile At Me EP from 2017 was a slow build that continued to grow then exploded with the release of her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and that album’s hit single “Bad Guy”. After that, everyone wanted to hear more of the music that her and her brother Finneas were creating in their parents’ house. Instead of another cookie cutter singer, Eilish’s distinct voice when mixed with pop meets goth meets R&B meets dance music had a little something for everyone.  Since then, Eilish has been on all sorts of shows, videos, tabloids, etc and those experiences all feed into her sophomore album, Happier Than Ever.

First track “Getting Older” rides a minimal synth beat which Eilish mumbles over becoming more clear in the chorus, the last line being the most vulnerable before it cuts to the head nodding drumbeat of “I Didn’t Change My Number”.  Eilish unleashes the line, “I didn’t change my number/I only changed who I reply to”. “Oxytocin” is a dark electronic throb with an echoey chorus that treats sex as a drug before the Underworld like lyrics of “GOLDWING” catches Eilish telling us multiple times to “keep your head down”.

Several of the singles are reserved for the second half of the album including the fifth single “NDA” that flexes like the hardest rapper, making a lover sign a non-disclosure agreement before leaving. Acoustic guitar appears more frequently on “Your Power” and the title track before it switches to a distorted electric guitar that gets louder as it goes on. 

Where the album drags is on several of the middle tracks including the spoken word “Not My Responsibility”.  At sixteen tracks, the same themes pop up time and again (troubles with fame, love interests, the media) but doesn’t add anything new. At times it can be like listening to a friend talk for 56 straight minutes while you tune in and out.  Still, the first several tracks are electric and the last few reach another emotional level. On her sophomore album, the title Happier Than Ever may be tongue in cheek but the teenage sarcasm is one worth listening to.

7.5/10

Posted in Listed

10 Favourite Songs of 2019

Posted on by Michael

10. Lala Lala & WHY? – Siren 042:  A few Lala Lala tracks caught our ear in 2018 but not like this one with WHY?.  The atmosphere on “Siren 042” is a bit sad as Lala Lala apologizes and explains herself in the lyrics but at the same time loses her personality as she makes changes.  This got played a lot in the early mornings.

9. Loma – Half Silences:  The sound is haunting when members from Shearwater and Cross Records get together to record.  The only thing that would make this track better is extending the first instrumental passage for a few more minutes before the vocals appear. This is also our favourite video of 2019.

8. Bleached – Shitty Ballet:  After the release of their debut in 2013, we lost track of Bleached until this first track from their latest album was released in April. The band has a knack of getting songs lodged in the head and this one was no different as we sang, “don’t want to pretend it’s OK when it’s not” throughout the year.

7. Lizzo (Feat. Missy Elliott) – Tempo:  Easily one of the coolest tracks of the year. The steady groove never gets too hyped but always keeps the head nodding along. Lizzo has received all kinds of attention in 2019 and when you can get the queen Missy Elliott on your track, you know you’re doing something right.

6. Sharon Van Etten – Seventeen:  When Van Etten released her newest album, this is the track that everyone latched onto.  It sounds like a female Bruce Springsteen looking back on her younger self while screaming that “I know what you’re going to be”.  In this case, that’s a great place to be.

5.  Billie Eilish & Justin Bieber – bad guy:  Always liked this track but our ears really perked up on the Interrupters version which made us go back and listen to the original even more.  Eilish’s vocals are hushed like she’s hiding in a closet while the simple beat gives Bieber room to really roll with a great vocal performance.

4. Fontaines D.C. – Boys In The Better Land:  Hearing the slower “Roy’s Tune” did not prepare us for this energetic anthem that blared out of our car speakers all summer. Name checking James Joyce, this one also had us Googling what “only smokes Carrolls” means.  This one makes us believe that the (rock) kids are alright.

3. Haim – Summer Girl:  An early morning drive to work and hearing this on CBC Radio 2 had us hooked immediately. Missed this one for the summer but it made our autumn a lot brighter with the mesmerizing saxophone hook.  Almost makes us want to book a trip to LA and have this on repeat.

2. Lil Nas X (Feat. Billy Ray Cyrus) – Old Town Road:  One late evening on stereogum.com we read about the country chart controversy with “Old Town Road” then watched about 20 TikTok videos afterwards. Being purists, we liked the original better but the Billy Ray Cyrus version is fine too.  The “can’t nobody tell me nothing” is the lyric of the year and the fact that the track gets in and out as fast as possible gives the listener whiplash as they hit the repeat button 5x.

1. Vampire Weekend – Harmony Hall:  This was instantly one of our favourite songs of 2019 from the first time we heard it. Listening to the feature on Song Exploder recently, we got the original meaning of the song slightly wrong the first time around but found the actual meaning of beautiful plantation houses being used for weddings fascinating. The sound recalls early VW tracks but is musically far more complex and nuanced.  It may not be the lyric of the year, see above, but “I don’t want to live like this, but I don’t want to die” is certainly right up there.