With little to no promo or marketing for it Billie Eilish is back with her new album titled Hit Me Hard and Soft
Debuting with the beloved EP Don’t Smile At Me and claiming her spot on top of the music industry with When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go and Happier Than Ever, Billie Eilish is without any doubt one of the biggest global phenomenoms in the industry. Billie Eilish being just 22 years old received 9 Grammy Awards. She also managed to become Spotify‘s most-streamed female artist in 2019. Long gone are her white hair and big baggy clothes days and the always-remembered green roots. Billie has reinvented her style in her latest album: Hit Me Hard And Soft while keeping her essence and uniqueness intact.
This time with Hit Me Hard and Soft is the least information we’ve had about Billie Eilish. She usually had a bigger promo before an album release. For years, she documented her journey through annual Vanity Fair interviews and candid documentaries. This lack of boundaries between Eilish and her audience is common for global icons like her. However, her intimate music makes her particularly suited for parasocial relationships. Her 2021 album, Happier Than Ever, was largely a response to public scrutiny. She was showcasing more reservation and maturity than in her 2019 debut, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. In the following years, Eilish maintained a low profile. She occasionally surfaced to soundtrack a Pixar film or win an Oscar before retreating to work on her next record.
Hit Me Hard And Soft is an evolution of the style that made her famous
According to Billie Eilish, the goal for HIT ME HARD AND SOFT was to create an “album-ass album,” citing influences like Coldplay’s Viva La Vida among others like Vince Staples’ Big Fish Theory. These records are ambitious pop mini-epics where established artists showcase their range. HMHAS delivers more of the same in the best way possible.
For the first time, Eilish’s live drummer Andrew Marshall and the Attacca Quartet, playing arrangements orchestrated by Finneas and David Campbell, join the project. Eilish, never confined to a single genre, transitions from minimalist trance to stadium rock. The album features the dense vocal layering and inventive percussion that characterize Finneas’s production. However, there are no significant departures, just larger versions of previous work, unlike Coldplay, who even explored shoegaze.
New themes like Billie’s often-questioned sexuality are explored in the album
Thematically, HMHAS explores falling out of love with a narcissist on “Blue” and falling in love with a woman for the first time. The opener “Skinny” suggests another record about the perils of fame, similar to Happier Than Ever. When Eilish confirmed her bisexuality in a Variety profile, it dominated the press. On the album, she addresses it on her own terms, dismissing past accusations of “queerbaiting.” Standing out amid Spotify-sanctioned sapphic playlists is challenging, but “Lunch” is notable for its straightforward sexuality and memorable line deliveries. Billie claimed her mother was completely silent when she heard it for the first time. This is obviously because of the explicit lyrics of the song. She is currently challenging Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso Nº1 sport on the charts with this song.
The chord progression of “Birds of a Feather” seems designed for wistful coming-of-age stories, and it appears in the trailer for the Netflix show Heartstopper. A fitting place to be for Billie as she explores her queer identity. These songs are uniquely vibrant departures in her catalog, not attempts to catch up with pop radio, but expressions of genuine enthusiasm for falling in love.
Later we see songs like “Chihiro” revisit the uptempo sound of one of her first singles “Bellyache” with big, expensive synths. However, several multi-part suites feel like retreading familiar territory. Despite a career-best performance from Eilish, “The Greatest” can’t escape the shadow of Happier Than Ever. “Bittersuite” transitions from its deep-sea dub intro to “Billie Bossa Nova 2” before timidly closing the album. The soft ending is “L’Amour de Ma Vie,” a breakup ballad that some of the fans see as the weakest song of the package. After years of redefining bedroom pop for stadiums, Billie and Finneas finally produced something that feels thrown together in a bedroom. That is the usual style for them since they started making songs together
This is the music video for Lunch:
Storytelling was always present in Billie’s music but now we see her taking a step further in that direction
Eilish breaks new ground in her storytelling, exploring relationship complexities with maturity. On “Wildflower,” she reflects on her feelings for her current boyfriend’s ex: “You say no one knows you so well / But every time you touch me, I just wonder how she felt.” The album highlight thrives on ambiguous readings. “The Diner” is a stalker song from the perspective of someone breaking into her kitchen, hoping a creepy letter will win her heart. Lines like “you could be my wife,” out of context, recall the same-sex attraction explored elsewhere. How much of herself does Eilish see in the obsessive romantic? This is the same artist who wrote in “Hostage” about wanting to crawl inside her lover’s veins. Texting the phone number whispered in the outro results in repeated automated texts saying, “it’s billie, call me,” merging a marketing gimmick with the story.
Hit Me Hard and Soft is an album that challenges listeners, inviting gradual exploration. A bold stance in today’s pop landscape. A unique piece of media like we always end up seeing with Billie.
Guillermo Lorenzo Manzano
