Billie Eilish has been singing about looking and being looked at for almost half her life.
Now 22, he broke out at 13 when his song “Ocean Eyes” went viral on SoundCloud; “Bad Guy,” the hit single from his 2019 debut album, poked fun at his crush’s girlfriend’s suspicions: “You said he’s afraid of me? I mean, I don't see what she sees.”
Eilish still reflects on the illusory nature of perception on “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” her third studio LP in a career that has already earned her nine Grammy Awards, two Oscars, and more than 100 million followers on Instagram. The album opens with “Skinny,” a breathy ballad in which she observes that “people say I look happy just because I'm skinny.” Disappointed but not surprised, she continues her thoughts on celebrities from 2021's “Happier Than Ever,” which arrived as part of a wave of high-profile records (including those from Olivia Rodrigo and Lorde) that question the health of the era of pop social networks.
“The Internet is hungry for the cruelest kind of humor,” he sighs on “Skinny,” “And someone has to feed it.”
However, as the title suggests, the dazzling “Hit Me Hard and Soft” goes beyond the quest to explore the more tactile pleasures and risks of Eilish's other senses. Sequenced intentionally, no doubt, right after “Skinny,” “Lunch” is a funky commentary on enjoying a woman’s body – “She dances on my tongue / Tastes like she could be the one” – while the grounded “ Wildflower” compares everything from her involvement in a love triangle to the torture of being burned alive: “You say no one knows you that well,” she continues, “but every time you touch me I wonder how it felt.”
With 10 songs in just under 45 minutes (a study in sharpness here in the era of “Cowboy Carter” and “The Tortured Poets Department”), Eilish's album gives the impression of someone who has accepted the unnatural demands of stardom and He wants to discover how to live a full life despite them.
“Hit Me Hard and Soft” primarily champions Eilish's signature electro-goth sound: the mix of folky guitars, glassy synths, and programmed beats she's been developing with her brother and producer, Finneas, since the two started making music in his parents' house in Parque de las Tierras Altas. But the new emotional release in its storytelling extends to the adventurous structures of songs like “L'Amour de Ma Vie,” which begins as a low-key soul shuffle before transforming into a propulsive rave jam, and “Bittersuite,” which does well in its title with three different parts.
In an unusual move for this proudly self-contained duo, Eilish and Finneas acknowledged the studio contributions of their touring drummer, Andrew Marshall, and the Attacca string quartet (though both fit neatly into the brothers' established sonic universe). What registers as a bigger change is the boldness of Eilish's singing: Long known as a committed whisperer, she sings here in a way we've never heard from her before; It's totally thrilling to watch her rise, rise, rise on “The Greatest,” a fast-paced rock song about unrequited love in which she congratulates herself for surviving “all the times I waited for you to want me naked.”
That survivor's chutzpah resurfaces in the hidden “The Diner,” which she narrates from the imagined perspective of a stalker; the song is full of haunting details: “I came through the kitchen looking for something to eat / I left a business card so they knew it was me.” However, Eilish, who presumably drew from real-life experiences she spoke about, performs the song with a smile. He even offers her version of an upbeat summer bop on “Birds of a Feather,” with the promise of endless devotion over lush acoustic guitars with a laid-back groove.
“I want you to see how I see you,” he tells his lover: a new application of an old instinct.
