Now one of the biggest stars in music at the ripe old age of 22, Billie Eilish does not owe you a thing. The release of the Los Angeles star’s third album has been shrouded in mystery and intrigue, with no single released as a teaser for what has been described, boldly, only as a “genre-bending collection”.
Eilish has always done things her own way, of course. In the five years since her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, was released, she hasn’t really set a foot wrong; Happier Than Ever, from 2021, won multiple Grammys, and her Bond theme won an Oscar – a feat she repeated a few months ago with her Barbie soundtrack hit, What Was I Made For? While other young pop stars have imploded under the pressure, the young Billie O’Connell and her producer, cowriter and brother, Finneas, have risen to every challenge with aplomb.
Still, on Hit Me Hard and Soft there is a sense that Eilish is growing tired of being the introspective, disaffected pop spokesperson for Gen Z. This is an altogether more personal collection – although at first listen the album’s opening track, Skinny, seems to tackle the unending social commentary on body image that she has confronted in the past. “People say I look happy, just because I got skinny,” she murmurs. The same song notes how “the internet is hungry for meat / It’s kinda funny, and somebody’s gotta feed it.” Really, the track is more of a commentary on a relationship, and it sets the tone for much of this record.
Eilish swings wildly between insecurity-addled heartache, on The Greatest and Blue (the latter opining how “I’ve tried living black and white, but I’m so blue”), and score-settling with a former flame, as on the bloodthirsty L’Amour de Ma Vie: “You said you’d never fall in love again because of me / Then you moved on, immediately,” she notes, before adding, once an EDM-esque beat kicks in, “You were so mediocre / And I’m so glad it’s over now.”
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More than once a soft lullaby swiftly mutates into a nightmarish reality. Chihiro’s dreamy, spacey LA club intro, showcasing Eilish’s fine falsetto, erupts into an immersive synthesised rabble. The Greatest follows a similar pattern, while The Diner will please fans of Eilish’s earlier material, its pop sensibility clashing beautifully with an offbeat, carnival freak-show underbelly.
Several songs don’t quite work. The softly strummed Wildflower and the mopey Birds of a Feather are both flat by comparison, eliciting comparisons in the worst way with Lana Del Rey or 1960s girl groups.
Lunch, on the other hand, is a playful, flirtatious nod to her recent declaration of bisexuality: “I could eat that girl for lunch, as she dances on my tongue,” Eilish coyly sings over a perky melody with a grimy undercurrent.
This is an album with fewer immediately gratifying songs than its predecessors, although it’s also arguably a more sophisticated effort in many respects. Genre-bending? Not quite, but it’s certainly an evolution of an artist who remains a singular talent – and who, by all accounts, still doesn’t owe you a thing.
Hit Me Hard and Soft is released on Friday, May 17th
