Billie Eilish has continued to climb up the celebrity status levels as she relates deeply to the upcoming generation of music obsessed teens. With Eilish only being 17, she knows what teenagers can connect with and how they feel. Releasing her first song, “Ocean Eyes,” in 2016 and her career skyrocketed overnight. Eilish’s first album, “do not smile at me” was released in 2017 and awakened her true identity. Eilish is very attentive to details when it comes to her albums and works alongside her older brother Finneas O’Connell for his song writing and producing expertise. Each song in the album is titled with all lowercase to give it a more casual feel and fully expresses every emotion possible within each song and continues to add that element with her new album, “WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?”

The first song Eilish released July 18 of 2018, “you should see me in a crown”, brought new fans for Eilish, including me and excited her original fans for a new album. She then released “when the party’s over” (a sequel to “party favor” in her 2017 album) and “wish you were gay.” “Wish you were gay” is a silly way of Eilish telling a classic and true story of having a hopeless crush on someone who doesn’t reciprocate feelings. Eilish exclaims in the song that she rather the guy she is into be gay to save her pride than have no excuse to like her. She tells her fans after the release that the guy was in fact gay and came out to her.

The album begins with a “song” titled with a bunch of exclamation points. The song is a fun way to start the album and lead straight into the first song, “bad guy” with a flawless transition. Having a prelude into a album has been a trend within the upcoming artists of this generation. Songs leading into more songs adds a spin on a basic album. “Bad guy” blows up in listeners’ faces with instant bass to a killer beat. Eilish’s voice enters the song using her famous whispering tone that she uses in the majority of her songs.

Adding more elements to her already fantastic songs, Eilish incorporates talking and noises into the mix. “My strange addiction” features lines from the classic comedy TV show, “The Office.” It begins with Steve Carell playing Michael Scott saying “No Billie, I haven’t done that dance since my wife died” with a bass following it. Throughout the song more actors from “The Office” are featured in little lines.

Eilish took her album to a whole new level by creating an interactive art exhibit called “The Billie Eilish Experience” in Los Angeles with a room for each song in the album. She wanted to let her fans into her mind to see her vision for the songs. She went as far to have a room’s temperature rise to resemble hell. For her song “8”, the room is full of puppies that are all adoptable. The puppies fit nicely with “8”, because it is the only song in the album that can be described as cute, upbeat or girly. At first, I did not think “8” was very good, because of her use of extreme autotune at the beginning to make her voice high-pitched. Although, the song slowly grew on me as the higher voice makes it unique from any other song I have ever heard. The rooms are a creative way to give fans a chance to escape to a place as crazy as Eilish’s mind.

The final song is a mix of all of the iconic lyrics in every song. It’s an original way to give the listener closure after a wild ride of emotion that Eilish gives you. The album does a perfect job of starting with a hardcore tone and then leaving the listener in tears by the end. Eilish has presented herself at the top of the new era of music and transforms trends into her own. Her quirky “I don’t care” attitude is what keeps her fans engaged and asking for more. “WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?” is the start of a music revolution that I feel the new generation is ready for.  

Contact Avery Hamlin at [email protected].