Billie Eilish

One Liner: Dark pop phenom at only 17 years old.

Wikipedia Genre: Pop, electropop, indie pop.
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: 1

Both Weekends.

Thoughts:  Major "pop" star, but with pop music that tends towards the dark, moody, emotional end of the spectrum instead of the "California Gurls" end of the performance world.  The first few times that I ever heard a song by her, I had no clue that it was a new artist, I thought "you should see me in a crown" was Lorde.

Even just the start of the track is cool, with that sliding sharpening of a knife sound.  AND THEN YOU SEE THE VIDEO AND YOU HATE EVERYTHING BECAUSE SPIDERS!!!  YUCK-O-RAMA.  That track has 185.9 million streams, which means it isn't even in her top five tracks overall on Spotify.

This article calls her a "generational icon," which I suppose is probably true.  She does this stuff semi-DIY, with her brother the only other listed collaborator on her whole album, which seems like a very Millennial way to do things, to eschew the hit producer and do your own badass thing.  And then seem totally surprised when its a big deal.

Her first hit single was "ocean eyes," which I have heard more times than I can count because my youngest daughter loves that song and wants to hear it all the time.  269 million streams on Spotify.

So, she was freaking 14 when she made and uploaded that song.  Which is absolutely wild.  If you would have just played me the song without naming the artist, I would have guessed it was Lana Del Rey.  Has that same breathy, torchy singing style.

She put out an initial EP back in 2017, but finally released a full album a few months ago in 2019.  I reviewed it and was surprised that it is actually better than I expected.  When all I had to go on was that EP (which I don't much like, other than "crown") I figured it would be more pretty poppy love song stuff like "ocean eyes," but I was very wrong.  Here is my review of the album.

Its a very weird album - you get bangers like "crown," then you get tender suicide balladry like "listen before i go," then you get kinda funny dance pop like "bad guy" (which shifts tempo near the end to become a totally different track made of trap beats), then you get weirdly funny stuff like "wish you were gay."  I have no clue how to actually pigeonhole this album or tell you what to expect.  I guess the thing to expect is something different from any other current pop album, and a lot of dark lyrics that can be a bummer, even while they sound lovely.

Wikipedia says her real name is "Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell," which I can't say I entirely believe.  But then this interview with her from the BBC agrees with the same, so I guess that is the word on the street.  Also, her brother Finneas, who wrote "ocean eyes" and produced her album, was an actor on Glee and I really wish I could remember who Alistar was on the show.  Nope - just went and watched some clips on YouTube, I definitely stopped watching Glee by the time those other new people came onto the show.  Did it keep going after everyone left for New York or whatever?  I guess so.  I, however, did not.

Her most streamed track is one with Khalid, so I'm going to provide you one more by herself, her second most streamed track, "when the party's over," with 364.1 million streams.

It is apparently a thing with her to make her videos awful and horrible and disgusting.  Very pretty song, but that video is disturbing.  I know I said only one more, but let's do one more.  This is "bury a friend," which has 252.7 million streams.

I was going to say - oh good, she isn't putting something foul in her mouth!  A real video!  But no, she's still getting shoved and prodded and messed with and injected with 15 needles...  Radio has been playing this one, and it is truly a weird song to hear on the radio tucked next to The Black Keys and Imagine Dragons...

As far as the live show experience goes, I have to admit to being curious what that would be like.  She ought to have a huge crowd - her streaming numbers are through the roof, so the youth will be there in droves.  But will it be a big dance party?  Will it be a somber ballad fest?  She just played Coachella, lets take a look.

Terrible sound on that video, but it certainly looks like she is there it have a good time and pump the crowd up.  I have to assume she is going to go up against some of the other major bands for the weekend, and I'll almost certainly choose them over her, so I am going to assume I will not see this show.

Let's also throw this out there - Rainn Wilson, from the Office, doing a trivia interview with Billie Eilish.  Kind of funny (and she has a DEEP Office memory).