At just 22 years old, it’s hard to believe that Billie Eilish is already a veteran pop star who’s three albums and seven years deep into her career — but here we are. Hit Me Hard and Soft, her third and most skillful studio LP yet, arrived promptly at midnight Friday (May 17), bringing with it 10 new tracks about life under the spotlight, complicated friendships-turned-romances and Eilish embracing her sexuality.
From the emotional accountability on “Wildflower” to the self-scrutinizing “Skinny,” Eilish’s latest set finds her fully in possession of the narrative maturity she was grasping at on her 2021 sophomore effort Happier Than Ever, which spent three weeks atop the Billboard 200. But with gothic allusions to death and criminal activity on songs like “Birds of a Feather” and “The Diner,” and shades of blue adding darker dimension to even the happiest moments on the album, the project also makes good on the star’s promise that Hit Me Hard and Soft would mark a return to the charms of her No. 1 hit debut record When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
“This whole process has felt like I’m coming back to the girl that I was,” she told Rolling Stone in April of making the album with her brother and producer, Finneas, whose best work to date is displayed on HMHAS. “I’ve been grieving her. I’ve been looking for her in everything, and it’s almost like she got drowned by the world and the media. I don’t remember when she went away.”
Keep reading to see how Billboard ranks the songs on Eilish’s new LP Hit Me Hard and Soft, from worst to best, below.
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"Bittersuite"
The album’s penultimate track relies more on Finneas’ artful production tricks than it does on any lyrics or message, but it’s definitely a fun listen. Its fragmented pacing may also intentionally reflect the impatience Eilish feels with maintaining a relationship under the demands of her public-facing job, which she addresses on lines like, “I gotta be careful, gotta watch what I say/ God I hope it all goes away.”
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"The Diner"
A feverish daydream of a song, “The Diner” marks a less-serious break in the album, akin to Eilish’s early hit “Bellyache,” on which she fantasized about toting her friends’ dead bodies around in the back of her car. This time, she imagines herself as a delusional stalker — perhaps even embodying one of her own rabid fans — breaking and entering into her target’s home in the hopes of someday getting married.
“I came in through the kitchen looking for something to eat,” she croons. “I left a calling card so they would know that it was me.”
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"Chihiro"
Named after Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away heroine, “Chihiro” has a lot going on. A groovy slap bass and distorted synth twinkles underscore one of the hookiest moments of the whole album, when Eilish sings, “Did you take my love away from me?” As a whole, though, the song creates more of a video game-ready ambience as opposed to obeying a more traditional structure.
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"L'Amour de Ma Vie"
“L’Amour de Ma Vie” calls back to the cheekiness of Eilish’s earliest tracks, like “Bitches Broken Hearts” or “Party Favor.” “I need to confess I told you a lie,” she sings ruefully on the first half of the distinctly two-part track, “when I said you were the love of my life.”
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"Blue"
On “Blue,” Eilish and Finneas reprise many of the motifs introduced throughout the album — similar to “Goodbye” on When We All Fall Asleep — including the glorious string break on the first track, “Skinny.” Swelling and cumulative, the album’s swan song is all about accepting circumstances for what they are, for all their beauty, pain and everything in between.
And yes, you heard her correctly at the very end. “When can they hear the next one?” Eilish asks in a matter-of-fact speaking voice, possibly hinting at a second album coming very soon.
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"Lunch"
“Lunch” finds Eilish fantasizing about a girl she wants to — as she puts it — eat for lunch, singing over an instantly addictive beat that eventually devolves into an all-out club-ready dance banger. It marks the musician’s first time explicitly expressing her attraction to women in a song, a task she takes on joyously and freely.
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"Birds of a Feather"
“Birds of a Feather” is full of clichés; even its title is one of the English language’s oldest idioms. But coming from a young star whose fame was propelled by her quirky outfits, edgy lyrical subjects and brash interview responses, such a simplistic love song is actually quite refreshing. Critics of Eilish’s vibrato-heavy signature vocal style will be silenced upon hearing her belt with her full diaphragm on this sentimental track, which is perfectly primed for a placement in a summery teen rom-com or two.
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"Skinny"
Eilish opens Hit Me Hard and Soft with a song that bridges the reflection she did on Happier Than Ever about stardom and self-image with the more nuanced perspective she’s gained since then. Three years later, the star seems to have made peace with her station while still being honest about its drawbacks, describing it here as being like “a bird in a cage” or “a dog in a dog pound.”
“Twenty-one took a lifetime/ People say I look happy just because I got skinny,” she continues before letting listeners in on a little secret, one of the thesis statements of Hit Me Hard and Soft: “But the old me is still me/ And maybe the real me and I think she’s pretty.”
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"The Greatest"
Fans of the back half of “Happier Than Ever” are bound to love “The Greatest.” It starts as an unimposing ballad about yearning for more appreciation and reciprocation in a relationship, but eventually ramps up into a cinematic rock free-for-all, in which Eilish once again lets loose for a moment of glorious belting. This time, Eilish takes overdue stock of her own self-worth, instead of just focusing on her ex’s shortcomings, making this a self-love anthem as much as it is a breakup song.
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"Wildflower"
“Wildflower” boasts some of Eilish’s most mature songwriting yet, in terms of both craft and perspective. Soulful and gloomy, it makes telling a complex story look simple, with the singer quietly suffering as she comes undone obsessing over her partner’s ex-girlfriend.
Lyrics like “I’d never ask who was better/ ‘Cause she couldn’t be more different from me/ Happy and free in leather,” for instance, are both straightforward and visceral, while the line “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me/ So I kept it to myself” is devastating in context. And as opposed to some of the other standout songs on HMHAS, Eilish’s narration is the centerpiece, not the production.