"I’m the bad guy, duh!"
There’s never been a pop star
quite like Billie Eilish.
Who in the world is this hoe?
I don’t know!
The teenager with
the heavy-lidded eyes
and baggy clothes
doesn’t conform
to our usual expectations
for female singers.
“Can I just say I think
Ariana deserves this?”
Yet her songs
have been streamed
more than 15 billion
times worldwide,
and in the few short years
since her 2017 debut,
she’s become one of those rare,
once-in-a-generation icons.
“Billie billie
billie billie”
Even more remarkably,
her success can be attributed
to the fact that it negates
so many of these things
we associate
with pop stardom.
“There was no intention
whatsoever,
none of that like
“I’m gonna be a star”.
“She is a star.”
“Shut up!”
But negation, by nature,
is also a definition.
And the phenomenon of Billie Eilish
also defines her era
and, as The New Yorker
wrote about her,
the “changing face of pop”
within it.
“I just want to create stuff
that people can feel.”
“Fame is irrelevant.”
Eilish’s meteoric rise
reflects how technology
has made music easier than ever
to create and distribute.
Her casual style
and offbeat persona
speak to a craving
for authenticity
in an age when so much
feels manufactured,
as well as a rejection of
the sexist standards of celebrity.
Or is your opinion of me
not my responsibility?
And the dark themes
of her songs—
which touch on topics
like climate change, depression,
and suicide— tap into not only
the emotions of her young fans,
but also the universal angst
of living in the 21st century.
“Why so sad?”
“ I don’t know…
Uh, the world sucks
and fame is trash, so….”
Here’s our take
on how Billie Eilish
became the unlikely voice
of our moment,
and created a
new kind of pop star.
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“ Ha! My name is Billie
and I’m going to play a song
that I made up
with this guitar.”
The phenomenon of Billie Eilish,
like most things nowadays,
would not be possible
without the internet.
Her first brush with fame began
with an accidental viral hit
at the age of 14, when Eilish
recorded the vocals for “Ocean Eyes,”
a song written by
her older brother Finneas.
“Those ocean eyes…”
When they first uploaded
“Ocean Eyes” to SoundCloud,
they had no intentions
beyond sharing the track
with Eilish’s dance teacher,
and maybe a few friends.
But “Ocean Eyes” became
a runaway success,
championed by music critics
and radio stations alike.
“That was like
the most beautiful moment.
And Finneas called me
and he was like
“dude Ocean Eyes
got a thousand plays”
Can you believe it?”
Most of the songs on
Billie’s 2017 debut EP,
Don’t Smile At Me, as well
as her 2019 album,
When We All Fall Asleep,
Where Do We Go?,
were still recorded
and produced right there
inside Finneas’ tiny bedroom
within their family home.
Their music still bears
the inherent playfulness
of a couple of kids
just messing around.
“So many people just think
that you need to rent a studio
and you need to have all these
producers and co writers
if you wanna make art
like fucking make art.”
Although critics
have often tried to characterize
Eilish’s music as “electro pop,”
she’s equally as influenced
by SoundCloud rappers, EDM,
trap and even jazz.
I was always listening
to 8000 things at once.
And the duo found
other musical inspiration
in the unlikeliest
of sounds.
“I have taken
out my invisalign.”
The chorus of her
hit single “Bad Guy”
includes a sample
of the ticking sound
made by pedestrian crossings
in Australia.
“Bury a Friend” features
a recording of a staple gun,
as well as the sound
of Eilish’s actual dentist.
“You hear a drill
shaving off my teeth
and it was not
a good feeling
and it doesn’t sound
like a good feeling.”
This kind of uninhibited
free association is also
found in her music’s many
references to pop culture
“There’s a whole crowd
of people out there
who need to learn
how to do the Scarn.”
While these juxtapositions may
seem completely disconnected,
they echo a type
of “hyperlink thinking”
that is the natural
vernacular for a generation
raised on memes
and Wikipedia rabbit-holes.
“You know what
it literally is?
It’s literally
plants versus zombies
and wizards
of waverly place.”
And her relationship
to her audience
is intimate in a way
that could only be fostered
by the accessibility
of the internet.
“I wanna be reachable
to everyone
I never went
to a Bieber concert
I couldn’t even try
to afford to go.
If there are people
waiting outside for me
I go up to them
and I hug them all” ”
and that’s also inspired by
growing up as a Belieber herself.
“I only wanted
to be famous
to get closer
to Justin Bieber.”
Eilish reflects today’s
online/ DIY era, too,
by overseeing every detail
of her creative output.
On top of writing, producing,
and performing her own music,
Eilish also designs
her own merch,
creates treatments
for her videos,
and handles
her own social media.
“I’m thinking about the video,
I’m thinking about the artwork
and about the colors
and the way it’s going to feel
and how it’s going to look.”
“Is my value based only
on your perception?”
With her idiosyncratic vision
and organic rise,
Eilish is not a product
of the fine-tuned, slick,
militaristic machine
of celebrity culture.
Billie ultimately
signed with a label
that would give her
creative control of her career
and was excited
about the vision
and wasn’t trying
to turn Billie
into something
that she wasn’t.
She’s the polar opposite of say,
K-pop stars performers,
who, famously,
go through rigorous training
in special bootcamps
before they are selected
and sorted into bands.
Pop music, in general,
has a long history
of manufacturing stardom.
It’s no secret
that chart-topping songs
are typically the result
of collaborations
between assorted producers,
vocalists and songwriters,
hired to create the beats,
find the hooks and write the lyrics.
From the Jackson 5 in the 70’s,
to N’Sync in the 90’s,
to One Direction in the 2010’s,
pop’s biggest acts typically launch
backed by external capital,
and controlled by ironclad contracts.
This is especially true
when it comes to female pop stars,
who have long been
forced to cultivate
some degree of sex appeal
simply to exist.
“Like, I cut out half the video
because I am a mother
“Are they pushing you
further than you wanna go?
“Yes.”
And even though this
sexed-up persona
has come to be expected
of female performers,
they’re often also
critiqued for being too sexy.
“Beyonce walks to
the grocery like this
Like Oh Oh Milk
and bread motherf*cker.”
Eilish’s resistance
to being marketed
or perceived as a sex object
has led her to adopt
a signature style of dressing
that’s built largely around
oversized tees and baggy shorts
paired with high-top sneakers.
“This shirt is like the only
size shirt i ever wanna wear.”
The resulting get-ups
make her look,
as Tyler the Creator
succinctly put it,
“like a quarterback.”
Eilish’s insistence on
wearing baggy clothing
Is partly a
defense mechanism,
but it’s also a form
of empowerment.
“Nobody can have an opinion
because they haven’t seen
what’s underneath.
Nobody can be like
oh she’s slim thic,
she’s not slim thic,
she’s got a flat ass,
she’s got a fat ass.”
While her clothes
hide her body,
they allow her to be seen
on her own terms.
“Young people
and young women in general
That you’re going
to inspire
just by being able to say
‘fuck it don’t style me
I don’t wanna be who
you want me to be.’
This is who I am
and you’re gonna love it”
As issues like body-shaming,
slut-shaming,
and the over-sexualization
of young women
continue to plague
the music industry,
Eilish has become one
of their most prominent critics,
using her appearance as a way
of confronting them directly.
“Some people hate what I wear,
some people praise it,
some people use it
to shame others.”
This refusal to play
to sexist expectations
has made Eilish a role model
to her young female fans,
who recognize in her
their own struggles with body image
and the pressures
of conformity.
“If I wear what is comfortable,
I am not a woman.
If I shed the layers,
I’m a slut.”
But young girls alone don’t account
for her billions of streams,
or Eilish being recruited
to sing the theme song
for the new
James Bond movie.
So what is it
about her music
that speaks to
so many, right now?
“What are you wondering?
What do you know?”
“We wrote an album
about depression
and suicidal thoughts
and climate change
and being the bad guy
whatever that means,
and we stand up here,
confused and grateful.”
For a teenager,
Eilish has a perspective
that feels remarkably
world-weary.
“My soul?
So cynical.”
“Your style doesn’t feel
like the average 16-year-old.
My mother would always say
oh this person’s been here before.
Like you’ve lived another life.”
“That’s crazy!”
This depth can be partly explained
by the way Eilish writes lyrics
from different points of view—
and not always her own.
“You don’t have to be in love
to write a song about being in love,
and you don’t have to hate
someone to write about that.”
In Bury a Friend, she sings
from the point of view
of a monster
under the bed
“Why aren’t you
scared of me?”
And she demonstrates how --
just like a playwright--
a musician can reflect more varied,
universal experiences
by inhabiting multiple voices
and characters.
“I wanna end me.”
Born just three months after
the attacks of September 11,
Eilish is part of a generation
that grew up amid
a pervasive sense of dread,
with up-to-date information
about all of the world’s catastrophes
at their fingertips.
“The world's a little blurry
Or maybe it's my eyes.”
The anxiety, fear,
and surreality of modern existence
permeate Eilish’s art,
whose defining characteristic
is its haunted, ethereal quality—
inspired, Eilish has said,
by lucid dreaming
and night terrors.
“I tried to scream.
But my head was underwater.”
Eilish has furthered this
nightmarish feel in her visuals,
from the creepy cover of
When We All Fall Asleep
to videos featuring imagery
of syringes piercing her back
and spiders crawling
out of her mouth.
Many of her songs are deliberately
intended to be distressing.
“You feel uncomfortable.
It feels uncomfortable.
It sounds like
a headache”
Some of the anxiety
Billie Eilish evokes
could be characterized
as classic teen angst
“I really really
really hate myself.”
But her broad popularity
suggests that the angst
she captures isn’t
limited to the young.
“There’s so many emotions
that everyone feels
no matter how old
or young you are.”
There is a widespread sense
in today’s culture
that we are living in dark times,
plagued by cataclysmic problems.
“Our earth is warming up
and our oceans are rising.
Extreme weather is
wrecking millions of lives.”
And Eilish is able to capture
this in music that pairs
the horrors of 21st-century life with
the timeless agonies of being young,
singing about climate change
and ghosting in the same verse:
“Hills burn in California,
my turn to ignore ya.”
Eilish’s voice is its own
eloquent statement.
“What was it about Billie’s voice?”
“Her emotionality.
Every time she sang
a lyric I believed it.”
Unlike the typical sing-along
pop anthems, many of her songs
sound more like quiet laments,
soaked in funereal sadness
“I wanna see the world
when I stop breathing.”
Her work has even been criticized
for being death-obsessed
But to Eilish,
the themes of suicide
and depression in her work
are really about expressing
the overwhelming nature
of being alive.
“There were all
these radio people
who wouldn’t play me
because I was too sad
and no one was going
to relate to it.
That was just funny to me
because I was like
everybody has felt sad”
In stark contrast to
so much pop music,
with its emphasis on escapism
and easily conveyed emotions,
Eilish’s songs embrace
many of the things
that are the most
difficult to talk about. “
So actually
the darkness of
your music is kind o
f like catharsis?
“Totally. That's why I dont
understand people
who say you shouldn’t
listen to depressing music
if you’re depressed.
I think its your comfort
that's your way of saying
those things
without actually having
to say them yourself.”
In this,
Eilish embodies a generation
that has become
increasingly restless
about the threats
facing the planet.
“People are suffering,
people are dying,
entire ecosystems are collapsing
and all you can talk about
is money and fairytales
of eternal economic growth.”
and tired of the complacency
of those in power .
“Out of date?
A lot of stuff.
Politics, baby.
These old motherfuckers trying
to make decisions for us?
I don’t understand it.
Today it is primarily young people
who have been leading the charge
on issues like
climate change,
universal healthcare,
and gun control.
“6 minutes and 20 seconds.
In a little over 6 minutes 17
of our friends
were taken from us,
15 were injured
and everyone,
absolutely everyone in the Douglas
community was forever altered.”
It’s a moment that demands
a different kind of pop star—
one who doesn’t seem like
an artificial distraction
from all of these problems, but offers
an authentic reflection of them.
Someone real,
whose art revels in the weird,
the uncomfortable,
and the messily human.
People are like
you’re a role model.
How could you say that?
Like do you know why
they’re looking up to me?
Because I say shit like that.”
In her music
and in herself,
Billie Eilish has captured
this latent, fervent desire
to challenge the status quo,
and to give voice to all the tension
and the darkness that so many
are feeling inside.
She is a star made by
and for the 21st century.
And she promises to cast a long shadow
over pop music’s future.
“It’s crazy to be heard.
It’s really crazy to be heard.
I think so much
of our tortures
as human beings
is not being heard.”
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