The last time NME spoke to Billie Eilish, change was afoot. On the eve of her massive Glastonbury headline appearance in 2022, she said that she was “trying to find myself again” and that she “felt pretty trapped in the persona that people had of me”. Identity crises are not uncommon in Billie’s career; in fact, they’ve provided much of its motor. 2019’s zeitgeist-busting debut ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’ encapsulated the pre-pandemic Gen Z experience: it was anxious and uncertain about growing up, and revolutionary in its abrasive, bedroom-pop sound. Then came ‘Happier Than Ever’, a sprawling – if somewhat kitschy – epic that was aesthetically inspired by old-school cool and classic songwriters like Julie London. She swapped her baggy, neon clothing for pin-up dresses and bleach blonde hair.
No wonder, then, that in 2023 the 22 year-old was ruminating on ‘What Was I Made For?’, her Oscar-winning contribution to the Barbie soundtrack. “Think I forgot how to be happy / Something I’m not, but something I can be”, she purred, a song supposedly about Margot Robbie’s titular character but was as much directed at its creator. Who was Billie Eilish, it pondered, and what was her purpose? Disruptive force anointed as a leader for her environmental-wary generation, or simply another young person trying to find their place in the world?
‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’ is a portrait of who she is now, and who she could go on to become. The album’s no-single rollout and occasional snippets – either at Coachella DJ sets or in Heartstopper soundtracks – have offered few clues, and a Rolling Stone profile offered, well, perhaps a little too much for some people’s tastes. But still, it was clear that she wanted to get personal: “This whole process has felt like I’m coming back to the girl I was [in 2019]. I’ve been grieving her. This isn’t an album about happiness, but there are at least glimmers of the full human experience for once.
‘Skinny’ follows Eilish’s trend of using the opening track to set the table for the rest of the album. First there was the 13-second goofy skit ‘!!!!!!!’ on her debut, encapsulating how it feels to make an album at home with your best pal, older brother Finneas. Then ‘Happier Than Ever’’s curtain-raiser ‘Getting Older’, was a wistful, sighing opener about how it feels to grow up as the most talked-about teenager on the planet
This time, it’s about confidence and self-reflection: “People say I look happy, just because I got skinny / But the old me is still me, maybe the real me, and I think she’s pretty”. She soon engages with her own narrative much like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande did on their recent albums: “Am I acting my real age now? Am I already on the way down? When I step off stage I’m a bird in a cage and a dog in a dog pound”. It finishes with a gorgeous orchestral flourish akin to her work on Bond song ‘No Time To Die’ with Hans Zimmer. It’s a superb song, one of her best ever.
‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’, then, is undeniably brighter in sound and more confident in its execution. ‘Lunch’ is a return to the same pulsing beat of ‘Bad Guy’ and ‘Bury A Friend’, interspersing a guitar riff with the same type of ravey beats she dabbled with tentatively on second album deep cut ‘Oxytocin’. ‘Lunch’ is explicit, too, in Eilish’s “cravings” for the first time, particularly since she’s spoken more openly about embracing her queer identity: “I could eat that girl for lunch / Yeah, she dances on my tongue / Tastes like she might be the one”.
‘Birds of Feather’ is a love song written from the perspective of someone who finally knows how it feels to be valued, though it might not be the happy ending she wants. Amidst one of her best vocal performances, she is devastated even if she doesn’t quite sound it: “I don’t know what I’m crying for, I don’t think I could love you more”. ‘The Greatest’ is a sequel to ‘Happier Than Ever’’s title track, a subtle build that explodes with a guitar solo ending and yearning; this time, the explosive rage is replaced with thankless acts of service to keep a partner interested.
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What makes ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’ so enjoyable is its ruthlessness – the 10 tracks are the fewest she’s had on an album, but they’re just as experimental and playful as her previous work. ‘L’Amour De La Vie’ – Love of My Life – starts off with a smokey, Laufey-esque vocal delivery, then flips into ‘Blinding Lights’-aping ‘80s synth pop. ‘Blue’, meanwhile, has something of Lana Del Rey’s ‘A&W’ in its willingness to flip the script and straddle two distinctly different sonic universes, from radio-friendly pop-rock, to sparse, murky electronic beats. Few moments are wasted, though ‘Bittersuite’ exists mainly as a production flex for Billie and Finneas, and ‘The Diner’ is quirky, if somewhat pedestrian next to some of these songwriting odysseys.
Billie came into this process with aspirations to find herself, creatively and personally: ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’ remains distinctly unique, a portrait of a singular talent entering young adulthood, exploring her queerness and experiencing the emotional thrill and (sometimes) catastrophe of chasing passion or falling in love. In trying to write an album for herself, she’s made one that will resonate harder than anything she’s done before.
Details
- Release date: May 17, 2024
- Record label: Darkroom