Billie Eilish-Happier Than Ever: A Review
Billie is back and I am…happier than ever (~badum tsss~) to get into this new world she’s created. I will try my best to keep this concise, but there is so much to discuss with this album. Happier Than Ever is vulnerable, bold, and really shows her opening up lyrically and sonically. TL;DR I loved the album. But still read what I’m gonna write though okay.
The opening track Getting Older, is a thesis statement for the album. The 4 minute track plays with muted and subdued synths throughout and Billie’s signature soft and wiggly vibrato. This song is extremely candid and leaves very few lines up to interpretation. She is telling us exactly what this album is and talking about some dark moments from her past; a theme that continues to come up and she seems to wrestle with throughout the course of the album.
“I had some trauma, did things I didn’t wanna
Was too afraid to tell ya, but now I think it’s time”
The next two tracks I Didn’t Change My Number and Billie Bossa Nova start to bring out this confident, cocky, and dare I say sexy (?) side of Billie that we haven’t ever really seen. And yeah I’m kind of obsessed. Throughout this album she is constantly roasting this unnamed person who seems to really be pissing her off. In Therefore I am, Lost Cause, and I Didn’t Change my Number, we hear through lines of a person or people with whom she doesn’t fuck with. But she lets us know so very gracefully in classic Billie fashion. The difference between her obvious roasts on WWAFAWDWG and Happier Than Ever is how much more grounded in reality this feels. Whereas WWAFA was more fantasy like, this feels as though she is truly talking about someone she knows and specific instances in her life. She mentions peoples names such as her manager Laura and her friend Drew. She is making it known that these songs are all written from experience, and less of a storytelling exercise like her last album.
Now something I didn’t know that I would ever hear was Billie singing about bondage…or something of the sort in, Oxytocin. But like, I’m not mad about it. It’s nice to have a song or two that really places more emphasis on the feeling it brings rather than just the lyrics. The production on Oxytocin, NDA, and Therefore I Am are some of my favorites. There is this distorted, electronic buzz that you can feel in your bones when you listen to those songs. Finneas has a way of pitching certain bass synths and doubling Billie’s vocals in octaves so low that they can only be felt but it still adds a deep electronic depth to the songs that makes it slap even hard for lack of a better phrase.
Production wise I feel like this album is on par with Lorde’s Pure Heroine in the way it feels lo-fi and tight. Half of the album feels like the physical equivalent to being on the cusp or come down of a high. That eyes half open, weight on your chest. The other half feels like when your arm or leg falls asleep or when you burp after drinking too much soda or getting shocked by a light switch. Do you catch my drift? Finneas knows how to produce in a way that is more of a physical feeling rather than an auditory experience. For me this helps the songs grab my attention more fully.
Vocally, I really love the layering of harmonies in this one. Especially the intro to GOLDWING which was one of my favorites from the album. I see hints of Billie branching out vocally in Happier Than Ever and NDA. The girls want to hear her scream and belt more! And yes I am the girls. She rarely gives us those power vocals but we know they are there. When she sings I feel like I’m listening to ASMR, which works well for her style, and she has a beautiful voice with great control. But that is one of my main critiques of the album. I want her to branch out more with her voice. I’m not saying give us Arianna or Chloe x Halle, but the way she popped off at the end of Happier Than Ever is the type of singing I hope to hear from her in the future.
One thing I really appreciate about this album is how the singles are not the focal point. There were 5 songs we heard before the album dropped, (6 if you count Not My Responsibility) yet it still felt like there was enough to discover on the album even if you already knew the singles pretty well like I did. Also, the album itself is so well sequenced, it felt as though we were being told a story with multiple plot lines that all resolved by the end. And the singles didn’t seem out of place. Many of them were weaved in with other songs like the transition between NDA and Therefore I am (which was just *chefs kiss*) and Not My Responsibility becoming Overheated.
After a few listens I started to group songs together thematically. GOLDWING, NDA, Not My Responsibility and Overheated are all about trying to escape the prying eye of the media and how public opinion has shaped her life. With the latter three from Billie’s point of view, and GOLDWING serving as Billie’s warning to a fictional “pure” character who has just entered the limelight (as explained by Billie in an interview).
Happier than Ever, Your Power, and Male Fantasy are in one way or another about these traumas she’s faced in past relationships and how men take advantage of younger and more naive women and girls. Again, all from multiple perspectives, but with her own personal experience laced in there.
Haley’s Comet and my future and the two love songs on the album. One about another person and another about herself. Oxytocin and Billie Bossa Nova are just about…y’know fucking, but make it a bop. Lost Cause, Therefore I Am, and I Didn’t Change my number are the snarky quips at someone she doesn’t like as I mentioned before.
And finally Everybody Dies and Getting Older are the more introspective songs that simultaneously are speaking directly to the listener and to herself. Billie sings about sadness in Everybody Dies and also tries to comfort those who are feeling the same as her. And in Getting older she opens up to us about things that she’s hidden in the past
Overall I think it’s important to listen to this album from top to bottom at least a few times. None of the songs really jump out as major singles, even the tracks that already are. I appreciate that though. Sitting down to listen to an album is like watching a movie. And when there is meticulous thought and care put into the order and the thematic content of the whole piece it makes the experience far more enjoyable. I see this as a personal pop opera album. Billie is telling a story of secrets she has kept hidden for years. She is opening up to us artfully and in her own time. And we love a coming of age tale!
Of course she will get criticized for it. I think about some of the lyrics in OverHeated critiquing people who get plastic surgery and only care about their appearance online. She’s bold about what she says here and stands by her words, which makes it all the more powerful. As a celebrity she will always get flack for anything she does. Take for instance the Lost Cause video being accused of queer baiting. An opinion of which I do not hold. I thought the video was fine. To me it doesn’t make a difference what her sexuality is, (which is her choice to disclose or not) none of these people criticizing her are going to get a chance to date or meet or talk to Billie Eilish probably ever so… who cares?
No matter what you do people will try to run your name through the mud if you have the amount of fame that Billie does. And because she rose to fame so young, a lot of the dirt that people bring up from her past is from when she was a literal child, which I don’t think should be brought up. If you ask anyone to remember what they were like between the ages of 12-17 you would get a lot of folks reminiscing on how absolutely dumb and clueless they were. The mistakes you make at this age, yes they should be corrected and learned from, but I don’t think people have the right to slander her in the way they were trying to do. It baffles me how sometimes people try to cancel artists over the smallest things, but when there are artists that do actual shit that needs to be canceled (ie. R Kelly, Chris motherfucking Brown, Kodak Black) somehow they magically turn a blind eye and these actual predators still have careers. Where is the logic?
Anyway that was a tangent but back to this recap. I think the album is very good. It’s cohesive, well produced, and very strong lyrically. I love the growth that we are seeing from Billie. This is a big step in her career and I think it is the perfect move to make after such a huge album like When We All Fall Asleep. Miss Eilish is showing us that she is not a one trick pony. She still has the artistic and creative vision to create music that is impactful, personal, and relatable. I love this new era and I hope it continues.