HIT ME HARD AND SOFT by Billie Eilish

Released on 17/05/2024 by Darkroom - Interscope Records
Main artists: Billie Eilish
Genre: Alternative & Indie

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Billie Eilish gives away the sonic theme of her third album right in the title. She and brother Finneas, serving once again as producer and co-writer, are in a mood to play with dynamics. She sounds great and beyond her 22 years on "L'AMOUR DE MA VIE," stepping out of the whisper zone that pervades much of the record. It starts out as a jazzy little ditty then takes a hard left turn: thumping EDM rave beat, buzzy synth, Auto-Tune vocals. "BITTERSUITE" begins as a loungey reggae romp then does a presto-chango with John Carpenter-esque spooky synth. And the monster shift of "THE GREATEST," from melancholy acoustic track to shoot-for-the-stars power ballad, recalls the excellent switcheroo of 2021's "Happier Than Ever"—only this time, Eilish isn't acting out with blood-and-guts grunge; it's more about controlled emotion, and it's impressive. The song explores the pain of realizing you love more than you're loved back, and the hide-behind-sarcasm chorus is a wallop. "All the times I waited/ For you to want me naked/ Made it all look painless," Eilish sings, practically rolling her eyes through words—before it erupts: "Man, am I the greatest." The singer's self-deprecating humor is sharp as ever, like when she sings on "L'AMOUR DE MA VIE" about how love can be blinding, but the fall of heartbreak restores your vision and sanity: "You said you'd never fall in love again because of me/ Then you moved on"—you can hear her slight chuckle here—"immediately." She follows up the line with "Bum, bum, bum," like she's her own punchline rimshot. "SKINNY" was written while Eilish was working on her 2023 hit "What Was I Made For?" from the Barbie movie, and the two have plenty in common—Billie at her breathiest and most vulnerable. "People say I look happy/ Just because I got skinny/ But the old me is still me and maybe the real me/ And I think she's pretty," she sings, offering a look into the trappings of fame in the modern age. "When I step off the stage, I'm a bird in a cage … And the internet is hungry for the meanest kinda funny/ And somebody's gotta feed it." But there's plenty of fun here, too. Bass-heavy "Lunch," which acknowledges the singer being newly out about her sexuality, feels like a cousin to her breakthrough "Bad Guy"; the song coyly slithers, but wolfish Eilish is straightforward, panting "I could eat that girl for lunch" over goth synth. "Birds of a Feather" is a giddy nod to mid-'80s radio pop. "CHIHIRO"—named for the hero of the Hayao Miyazaki movie Spirited Away—has an elastic, trance-like '90s vibe. And slinky "THE DINER" dips into French-kissed Romany pop. It all ends with "BLUE," which travels from moody pop to stark ballad to cool, robo-effect hip-hop and drops lyrical Easter eggs that seem to reference the album's other songs before Eilish acknowledges the world's insatiability: "Now when can I hear the next one?" © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

HIT ME HARD AND SOFT

Billie Eilish

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SKINNY

00:03:39

Andrew Marshall, Percussion, DrumKit - Jon Castelli, MixingEngineer - Dale Becker, MasteringEngineer, ImmersiveMasteringEngineer - Aron Forbes, MixingEngineer - Andrew Yee, Cello - FINNEAS, Producer, Engineer, Glockenspiel, Guitar, Percussion, Programmer, Bass, Synthesizer, Vocalist, VocalEngineer, Keyboard, StringArranger, DrumKit - Billie Eilish, Vocalist, MainArtist, VocalEditingEngineer, Keyboard - Finneas O'Connell, ComposerLyricist - Domenic Salerni, Violin - Billie Eilish O'Connell, ComposerLyricist - Brad Lauchert, MixingEngineer - Nathan Schram, Viola - Amy Schroeder, Violin - Katie Harvey, MasteringSecondEngineer - Noah McCorkle, MasteringSecondEngineer