Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever” album review

His debut album made mutant pop with unconventional instrumentation, but Happier than ever is both the most conventional and the least predictable work of the pair.
Photo: Billie Eilish / YouTube

Billie Eilish’s meteoric rise has seen a lot of turbulence, both avoidable and inevitable. By the time she entered her final year of her teens last December, she had already sold a million records, swept through the major categories at the Grammys, passed both the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 charts, sang the theme song of a Bond (forthcoming) movie, starred in a documentary about her life, and befriended her childhood idol, Justin Bieber. Along with all this, unfair criticism of her body and a legitimate recoil for her more spirited music takes seemed to throw the young star into a defensive position. She withdrew for a second, then began to renegotiate her relationship with the audience. She ditched the jet black mop with slimy green highlights that had become an iconic look throughout her debut rollout in 2019, When we all fall asleep, where do we go?, and her tour, and said goodbye to some viewers ‘long, flowing costumes crudely compared to’ 90s rapper clothes, reverting to her natural blonde locks and unveiling a new wardrobe that challenged the presumption that she was wary of prying eyes from people. Eilish came back to a slightly harsher audience, a little less forgiving than before. The drive wheels are off. It is easier to draw smoke. The old blunders are coming back now. His videos are gaining more attention. She was charged with queerbaiting. She had to apologize for using an insult in an old video. This made Eilish in turn more protective of herself. and clearer in his diction. The music she released this year opened new avenues in her singing and writing, surpassing the claustrophobic synth pop of her hit single “Bad Guy” and, at times seemingly out of necessity, reflecting moments of unwavering honesty throughout. The world is a little blurry. Where do you go after your debut album catches the attention and rewards so many artists you’ve never seen in their lives?

Happier than ever, Eilish’s second album, explains the differences in the singer’s life in more detail than we assumed from breadcrumbs in her Instagram posts and interviews. In many ways, this is your second textbook project: it’s, in part, a reaction to the shocking experience of quickly becoming a public figure behind a hit album and the unexpected life changes that it entails – l love, scrutiny, limitlessness, and increased parasocial expectations. Eilish seems to be handling it in stride in a batch of songs that are more overtly personal than the last time around. At the beginning, in “I Didn’t Change My Number”, the singer pleads to know who can have access to her behind the scenes. “NDA” is a look at the nagging traps of celebrity: partying since I got the keys. The interlude “Not My Responsibility”, originally a piece performed during the When we all fall asleep tour, is a harsh retort to all those who have chatted about the singer’s body:, I will never be able to move. Where on the first album Billie sometimes feels like a spectral narrator wandering through scenes of disarray, meditating on the afterlife and tiptoeing through salacious drugged nights, here she owns her body. and the lust and the rage and the pain and the rational and irrational aches and pains that go with it.

As Eilish coldly berates stalkers, gossipers, abusers and predatory men, she takes the time to let listeners know that she is not unhappy, is just taking the trash out of her life and demanding respect. that she deserves. Its growing independence is accompanied by a considerably broadened musical palette. Once again working closely with his older brother, Finneas, Eilish embarks on a larger world of sound but maintains the disarmingly calm of his early days. “Billie Bossa Nova” is a scattered tribute to Brazilian music; the surly “I Didn’t Change My Number” and the kiss “Lost Cause” both feel indebted to ’90s hip-hop soul. “Goldwing” is a holy choir number that hooks a sharp left in the kind of distorted vocals and electronics you’d expect from Björk earlier. The disparate threads of advanced singles – see: the subtle nu-jazz accents in “My Future”, the gutting folk of “Your Power” and the sinister electropop of “Therefore I Am”, one of the few callbacks to the sounds of When we all fall asleep – are linked in an album which, like its predecessor, stands out from the favorite sounds of contemporary pop stars. He takes the rustic minimalism of the songs Jack Antonoff produced for Taylor Swift a step further; opener “Getting Older” manages to feel both mellow and delicate and barely there. Eilish’s debut album made mutant pop with unconventional instrumentation, but Happier than ever is both the most conventional and the least predictable work of the pair. There are no EDM melodies or shiny 80s rock choruses, no cheerful trap beats, and no unexpected pop-punk jams. The only qualities that bind Happier than ever to this year, or even this decade, are lyrics like the line to “Billie Bossa Nova” in which she tells a guy to lock his phone when they’re together.

Eilish’s deceptively muffled voice and relentless, towering presence make for a tantalizing combo, and the unexpected twists Finneas’ production takes underfoot all transport this album to places the first wasn’t ready to visit. The strides the two siblings have made in improving their craft over the past two years is never more evident than on Happier than evertitle of, the longest song in the young singer’s catalog to date. You think it’s going to reflect the wispy, extremely dark trilogy of songs that wrap up the last album when it creaks like some sad old country breaking tune. It’s a trick. Halfway through, Eilish’s whisper explodes into a chorus of harmonizing screams as she shoots darts at her ex-boyfriend, unequivocally explaining how and why he blew her up and begging her (and can (be us too) from “Just fuck me alone” in a flurry of thick fuzz and feedback. It’s a shock that is reminiscent of the high note that swells at the climax of Bond’s theme “No Time to Die,” another wild card she had been hiding up her sleeve from the start. You wonder what else she’s capable of as the closer “Male Fantasy” gently leads us on with discussions of recovery and therapy. Maybe we will find out in 2023. You move at a different pace when your main competitor is yourself.