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It feels premature to draw a bright pink line over Billie Eilish’s recording career, but do we really have a choice? Her haunting ballad “What Was I Made For?”, which appeared on last summer’s “Barbie” soundtrack, felt so delicate, original and profound that it automatically became her name. The songbook has been split into two parts. So, for the post-pink era, we present her new album “Hit Me Hard and Soft”. On this album, Eilish sings with exponential precision, her melodic whispers acting like steamrollers, roller coasters, pneumatic jackhammers, bombs exploding in the air, and hard sounds. And really soft.
On the surface, this is a breakup album about separating yourself from the people you love, including who you used to be. Eilish quickly established the framework with “Skinny,” imbuing it with a subversive “Barbie” tone and explaining that it “took me a lifetime to be 21.” If you reflexively roll your eyes when you feel 22 years old, it’s probably the first season of adulthood where you’re beginning to understand that your past is irreversible. Try to remember just how difficult it was. On top of that, it sounds like Eilish’s loneliness is made worse by the faceless cruelty of this digital world she was born into.
By grouping these gentle syllables into a descending melody, she sounds like smoke falling down the stairs. Somehow it seems true. Her songs are very considered, precise, and very emotionally tuned, but mostly in a way that requires tuning. In a dreamy, subtle passage from “Chihiro,” Eilish finds herself more than 30 notes within her eight words – “Did you take my love away from me?” As if identifying petals falling in the wind. Her brother, producer and songwriting partner Finneas emphasizes understatement, allowing the disco bassline to flutter on its own while the drums patter over a completely absent cliff. ing.
So, is “Chihiro” a disco play or a lullaby? And is “Skinny” bossa nova or neo-soul? Genre fusion is at the heart of this album, but it doesn’t feel like two brothers making fruit smoothies so much in a dream state. Other songs on “Hit Me Hard and Soft” undergo stylistic mutations in a more linear manner. “The Greatest” begins in a coffee shop and turns into a Britpop festival at Walt Disney World. “L’Amour de Ma Vie” starts with a cabaret and moves into an emotional Nintendo. It’s tempting to look for themes of change and evolution in the twists and turns, but Eilish’s voice takes center stage. Amidst a chaotic and rapidly changing world, she digs deeper into her own inner world, drawing on the chameleonic pop progressives long established by artists such as the Beatles, David Bowie, Prince, and Madonna. It’s an implicit rebuttal to the story.
But Eilish is not uniformly sad. “Lunch” has an almost shocking playfulness to it, with Eilish reciting a dirty, crushed-heart monologue before finally admitting, “She’s in the headlights and I’m a deer.” wonderful. And then there’s “The Diner.” Throughout, Phineas is bending his synthesizer like a funhouse mirror, and it’s hard to tell whether Eilish is joking about the stalker fantasies she’s describing, giving her victim’s phone number. He ends the song in a literal whisper, mockingly remembering it. In any case, (310)-807-3956 joins 867-5309 and (281)-330-8004 as the most famous numbers on Pop Music’s Yellow his page.
And while these two cuts feel like something of an outlier, they still point to the album’s fundamental questions. Eilish tackles this issue head on in “The Greatest,” taking the emphasis of the question off “you” and placing it entirely on “me.” Here’s how the big choir of Orlando’s Oasis ends. God, I hate that. All my love and patience is not appreciated. ” She doesn’t sound like a solipsist, an egoist, a brat. As always, listen to them. The title of the song comes to mind immediately.
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