“I wanted it to literally be like an exhibit, a museum, a place to smell and hear and feel.”
At the time of writing this, it’s been exactly 518 days since a friend of mine first recommended the then-15-year-old singer-songwriter Billie Eilish and her debut EP to me, Don’t Smile at Me. My exact remarks were “I like her”, but never did I anticipate the unprecedented levels of attention and success Eilish would later garner in the ensuing 500-odd days...Whilst there have been ensuing arguments over the reasoning behind her rapid ascendancy, Eilish has taken the world by storm with the recent release of her debut LP, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, re-molding the notion of pop music within her gothic 'museum'.
Laughter leads us into the maniacal ‘museum’ of Eilish’s mind - commencing a succinct 43 minute exploration into the weird and wonderful depths buried within. Eilish’s quaint vocal delivery is inherently felt throughout this LP, commencing with ‘bad guy’ - a goth-pop hit flavoured with trap beats and a hauntingly whiny synth refrain at the heart of it all. Such popularised claims of Eilish personifying a ‘spooky’ alternative to the female pop-sensation Lorde, inevitably come to mind with ‘xanny’ laying ladles of parental lyricism against drug abuse to the current generation of teenagers. Within the first handful of tracks, it’s clear that we’ve begun on an atypical pop journey - showcasing a teenager extending responsible advice toward her millions of ‘millennial’ devotees.
This ‘spookiness’ encased within Eilish’s repertoire seethes through in the sparse instrumentation and moments of silence amongst her brooding goth-pop landscapes. Not only for ‘xanny’ but for such tracks as ‘wish you were gay’ and ‘when the party’s over’, Eilish feasts upon the pure simplicity of her chosen instruments - rarely venturing outside a piano/synth, programmed beats, and simple guitar refrains. As an LP listening experience, I’d normally reserve disdain toward the sobering facade of Eilish’s and coin it as ‘lazy’ or ‘trite’ - which were certainly my thoughts on its initial listening. However, as I delved further into Eilish’s subject matter and use of instrumentation, I began to appreciate the haunting silences noted amongst it all which paradoxically allowed Eilish’s vocal flow and lyricism to excel.
As we approach the latter stages of Eilish’s tangential ‘museum’, however, we’re provided less memorable moments in the way of ‘8’, ‘my strange addiction’ and ‘ilomilo’. For the middle track’s rubbery exterior, it becomes bizarrely inter-spliced with some less-so-memorable snippets from The (US) Office TV series. This rubberiness distorting the ubiquitous bass and beat refrains fail to stand-out against the other major singles produced from this LP - falling flat on some awkward mixing and half-baked vocal deliveries from Eilish.
In spite of these pitfalls, Eilish’s dark lyricism permeates its way through the entirety of this LP, particularly in its final exhibitions of such tracks as ‘bury a friend’ and ‘listen before i go’. From the former’s unnerving ruminations ‘step on the glass, staple your tongue, bury a friend’, to the latter’s suicidal love letter ‘if you wanna see me, better hurry cause I’m leavin soon’, Eilish impressively burrows ever-further into her darkening ‘museum’. Underpinning these pernicious lyrics are the various glitch-pop/trap nods sporadically popping up, namely in the form of a dentist’s whirring drill and the harsh drum beats reminiscent of Kanye West’s punk-esque track ‘Black Skinhead’.
Drawing toward the exit signs of her museum, Eilish eases the listener back to normality within the final few tracks of the LP. The mere track titles of ‘i love you’ and ‘goodbye’ would ordinarily contain some sentimental value, yet Eilish skirts around the edges of these tendencies oscillating between self-confidence and damning self-criticism transcending into a hallowed bleakness. In an age of braggadocio infiltrating every corner of the mainstream, Eilish masters the art of simplicity and introspectiveness - proving that such facets allow an audience easy accessibility into any given museum of music.
Despite my underwhelmed initial thoughts on this LP, the journey through Eilish’s museum fared better in the long run - producing a body of music which revels in the elusive production, quaint vocals, and sparse instrumentation. Given the fact that the album has already been streamed over 194 million times in its opening week, could Eilish have the same Drake-effect within her given genre? Or are the current age of millennials just desperate for a pop idol who can similarly reference The Office, discredit drug use, and talk openly on mental health? One thing’s sure - even when we do fall asleep at night, Eilish is going nowhere but forward within the landscape of pop.
7.5/10
Billie Eilish's latest LP, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, is out now and can be found here.