billie eilish

I was ready to hate this, but all the kids are right. It's great.

Yep.

I think most teenage girls go through a phase where their parents think they are sociopaths.

That's the (somewhat winking) conclusion this excellent book comes to, which I almost highly recommend to anyone, not just parents of girls:

https://www.amazon.com/Untangled-Guiding-Teenage-Transitions-Adulthood/dp/0553393057/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=untangled&qid=1554554652&s=gateway&sr=8-2

That said, my older girl seems into this person, and yeah, "gen z as fuck" seems like a good way to sum up her appeal and also why she might turn someone off. For some reason when she plays here this summer she is doing an early and late show, which doesn't seem like something that happens very often anymore.

(book is called "Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood")

Never been a teenage girl iirc but you'd be forgiven for thinking I too was a sociopath at that age.

I don’t think she seems like a sociopath, just (in the songs) a little bit of a zombie.

The album is better than i thought though. But gloomy and dull by design—that’s the sound of the moment

When the party’s over is the best one i think

dang I forgot to vote for "Stay". you all would loooooove my falsetto on that one

gloomy and dull by design

My jam. Nothing makes me feel more alone than the sound of enforced happiness.

oops wrong thread, should say here, you all would loooooove my falsetto on "Bad Guy"

I thought you were going to say '8'.

it's not really a falsetto album, I was scrambling

so have we settled the matter?

If it’s good or not? I think it’s a very characteristic album for this era. That’s all I’vd really been saying.

i think it's good. i'm not taken by all the tracks yet but still compelled to keep listening. bizarrely "you should see me in a crown", which i didn't like much as a single, has grown on me in the context of the full album

weird that pre-teens are now listening to witch house tracks. this stuff is surprisingly good though.

I like this a lot. yeah her voice does sound like LDR. whatever. the music is good too.

I don’t hear the LDR comparisons... it sounds closer to say, Sofi Tukker to me.

this podcast on her music was good, ends with an interview of her brother

https://www.switchedonpop.com/billie-eilish-is-a-different-kind-of-pop-star/

I haven't listened to Switched-on Pop in a while. Thanks for the reminder.

i'm getting a little hooked on some of this

it's interesting because her brother's solo music is... well, not bad, but not as good as this

I can see Bad Guy used in a lot of tv/movie preview montages and stuff

it's interesting because her brother's solo music is... well, not bad, but not as good as this

Weird, because my takeaway from this album was that the brother is as much a discovery as Billie herself. It takes something special to make the soporific sound of the moment wake up a bit while still ticking all the pertinent streaming-friendly boxes, but as far as I’m concerned they’ve done it.

(Of course it’s possible that I’ve just sorely missed the sound of a 4/4 kick drum at a tempo above 110, and “bad guy” and “bury a friend” are very much scratching that itch. But even the trappier stuff like “you should see me in a crown” still feels like a novel twist on the given formula.)

I really like this, especially the 2nd half. "I Love You" is beautiful

good mix
https://itunes.apple.com/us/playlist/in-my-room/pl.2a0b1ea7704842f4b956e959067b8389

Tricky being in there makes a lot of sense.

hi i'm old and all the "who is billie eilish? WHY is billie eilish?" writing somehow made me not getting around to listening to her music for a while and.. i really like it!

also otm:
have people confused about why teens like angsty music ever been teens

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Saturday, March 30, 2019 9:22 AM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hi, I'm redeeming my late pass here because I just encountered "Bury a Friend" and went "holy shit wow"

I get the Lorde comparison due to a similarity in their vocal quality (that was my first thought when I heard the song) but, as I hear more, the comparison starts falling apart because the overall approaches are so different.

I could have made the exact same post about two weeks ago!

I'm listening to the album for the first time and it's much less aggro/gothy than I was expecting on the whole from the marketing. It's really nicely mixed, big dynamic range.

re: the "My Strange Addiction" - "Bury A Friend" - "Ilomilo" section Brad referenced upthread, I keep thinking of a slightly different world where Selena Gomez chose to go this direction and how she would probably kill at these songs.

I also keep thinking about how I hear these strong similarities in her work to other artists but how they cohere into a vision that is 100% singular and fascinating. I don't get why anyone would react so negatively towards this.

yeah other than "Wish You Were Gay" and the Office samples I don't get the hate either, unless it's just kneejerk anti-zoomer-ism or something

the only thing i don't particularly care for here is "8"

wonderful debut

'When The Party's Over' reminds me of FKA Twigs. And I get all the comparisons (Lorde, Gomez et all) but it's to her advantage that she's not easily pinpointed. I think this is a wonderful album all in all, with the aforementioned one or two misses.

I'm imagining a new combo single in the vein of "Ladies' Night"/"Bang Bang"/"Lady Marmalade" only it's Selena Gomez, Billie Eilish, Demi Lovato, and Lorde doing "Temple of Love"

— DJP (@djperry1973) June 10, 2019

Her music sounds really good when you hear it randomly played during a normal day.

Would stream xp

i think the lorde thing was less a direct sonic comparison and more of a cultural/contextual thing? i could be wrong tho

i prob posted this upthread but i thought what is cool about this album is how despite her narrative as a gen z groundbreaker or w/e it fits into a sort of cross genre continuum of bold female driven pop

A good RS comparison was to PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love timeframe.

I've cooled on the album since April. About half the album is too quiet or her melodies aren't strong enough to compensate for the deliberately malnourished arrangements. The only one of the slow ones I like is the mandolin track that reminds me of Portishead's "Deep Water."

the "bad guy" memes that were floating around twitter for a bit recently were v cute/funny

in case you don't listen to the radio (wouldn't blame you), that song is now officially Blowing Up there, her first proper cross-metric hit

I realized there is an entire continuum of people who are younger than I am, missed a lot of the late 90s reference points we've cycled through (and might not be up on contemporary peers) who have tween children listening to Billie Eilish

lol

I listened to this in full and thought it was Bad™. But also, it’s Not Meant for Me®.

I don't understand this "intentionality" nonsense. I guess I shouldn't watch movies, read novels, or listen to music since 98 percent of their products weren't written for or by gay Latino men.

If you don't like the music, say so. But don't pull the this-music-is-for-adolescent-girls garbage.

I think ultimately shattering the doors to other genres of music that have traditionally been closed off by listeners themselves (let alone the media by implicit or explicit bias in coverage and attitude) is an immeasurable positive for society (let alone for one’s own personal taste). Which is not a judgment call on those who dislike certain albums or artists but it’s an encouragement to free the mind.

bad guy is really a cool song