“Fell in love for the first time,” is the opening line of Billie Eilish’s third album, her soft, sensuous voice sighing through a delicate haze of acoustic guitars as she sounds a note of ominous regret: “21 took a lifetime.”
Heartbreak is a painful experience, but it is perversely good for songwriters. With Hit Me Hard and Soft, the preternaturally talented Eilish reckons with her first big affair of the heart and its aftermath. Across 10 beautifully wrought songs, running at an economic 44 minutes, Eilish (along with her songwriting and producing sibling, Finneas O’Connell), offers a forensic account of the giddy heights and brutal lows of an obsessional but flawed relationship encompassing lust, adoration, possessiveness, infidelity, jealousy, sorrow, liberation, regret and bitterly hard-earned self-knowledge.
Alongside Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, Eilish is the youngest of a triumvirate of female superstars currently ruling the pop roost. Her gorgeous voice, lyrical acuity and zeitgeisty attitude established the Californian prodigy as a voice of a generation phenomenon whilst she was still in her mid-teens. Now age 22, her latest piece of work represents a kind of artistic coming of age, set to earn its place amongst the all-time great breakup albums.
Eilish sets the scene with highly quotable opening song, Skinny, packed with references to her life that will set social media buzzing. The young singer lost weight and started wearing more revealing clothing between snappy 2019 debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and its follow up up of 21st-century torch songs, Happier Than Ever, in 2021. “People say I look happy / Just because I got skinny” she tartly notes, reasserting her “body positive” ideology with “But the old me is still me and maybe the real me / And I think she’s pretty.” But otherwise the album skips social issues to focus on matters of the heart. There’s no climate change anthems, MeToo moments or woke sloganeering. The big issue here is the same one that has been at the centre of songcraft since the dawn of the pop age.
In today’s gossipy pop culture, it is hard to resist pouring over Eilish’s lyrics in search of clues to the star’s private romantic life: “The internet is hungry and the meanest kind of funny / And somebody’s gotta feed it,” Eilish acknowledges in her opening address. A lot of attention will surely be focussed on the lustily sapphic Lunch, the album’s catchiest electro banger, in which the young star (who has been open about her bisexuality) really gets sexed up on record for the first time, teasing “I could eat that girl for lunch / Yeah she dances on my tongue / Tastes like she might be the one.” It’s a fun track, with an addictive synth bassline that puts it in the league of her biggest hit, Bad Guy, yet it feels like a distraction from the painful issue at hand.
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
