billie eilish

i don't think they're going to get any more major hits out of this but it's a fair bit stronger than her debut, there's some really really good stuff on here

― ufo

Apparently the title track is getting a video. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the breakout hit of the album. Overall, I can see this album doing well initially, but not having the longevity of the first album. Could be an Ultraviolence type situation where it wins a lot of people round, but sells half as much as the debut which has kept on selling for years.

I don't know what Eilish did wrong, but my younger teen daughter outright refuses to listen to this. I think she called Eilish a "fake activist" or something? And has a problem with her boyfriend? Anyway, I was surprised.

Oxytocin + GOLDWING, good stuff

jic - assuming it's this?

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/06/18/billie-eilish-boyfriend-matthew-tyler-vorce-apology-racist-homophobic-slurs/

I hate living in 2021.

cosign

Anyhoo yeah the few songs I’ve heard are very low key and discreet for them to become hits but I don’t find the style that surprising considering she has made a career out of whisper singing.

Oxytocin + GOLDWING, good stuff

― nashwan

X2

Oxytocin reminds me of Britney Spears of all people though

This is sounding great to me so far... light-years ahead of the last LP (which I never warmed to).

The title track is indeed great; I just don't go for those blown-out/distorted heavy beats (esp. in contrast to the chilly clarity of the album's sound generally).

(I get that the "contrast" is probably the aesthetic point - I just don't find that overdriven sound pleasant on the ears)

Oxytocin reminds me of Britney Spears of all people though

absolutely

This album is everything I was hoping it would be, from the advance tracks. They gave her all those Grammys too early, IMO (and she’s not even one of my “core” artists or quite to my taste – but this is so good).

it's much better than the debut which had its moments but was pretty inconsistent to me. really builds on all the things i liked from it while avoiding the parts i didn't like as much

her lyrics have also improved significantly, except for the bridge in "overheated" where she gets so disparaging about plastic surgery

Well if ILM is liking it, it does not bode well for the success of this album.

hmm how did "everything I wanted" not make the cut for the album

It’s pretty old and was on the reissue of the last album

Listened to this in the car with my 16-year-old son today. We both liked it. He respects her without being a huge fan, he judged it “a little uneven” and awarded it a 7.7 out of 10. That felt reasonable to me, but we both agreed it might nudge up past 8.0 with repeat listens.

except for the bridge in "overheated" where she gets so disparaging about plastic surgery

The lyrics on the album are strong throughout, but I agree this one part feels weirdly off.

it's especially jarring coming after "not my responsibility" where she's very savvy about the way women are judged for their appearances and bodies

yeah exactly

this album reminds me a lot of yeezus & like... late 90s downtempo pop stuff

I'm not feeling this...yet. The length is oppressive too.

Breihan nailed my discomfort: https://www.stereogum.com/2155762/billie-eilish-happier-than-ever/reviews/premature-evaluation/

despite the length there's not really anything i'd cut, it's very well sequenced. the weakest track is probably "therefore i am" but it sits nicely enough where it is with the transition from "nda". i don't understand that review's complaints about it being too boring either. it's mostly quiet and restrained but it's very very good at that & is still rich with details and constantly changing things up, even approaching letting loose occasionally with "oxytocin" before it finally does with the title track. even "lost cause" which underwhelmed as a single fits perfectly into the vibe of the album

Here’s a little more on “Everything I Wanted” (from a Rolling Stone profile):

Eilish kind of got to say goodbye to the When We All Fall Asleep era (and the look that helped make her famous) at the Grammys this year, performing the one-off single “Everything I Wanted” with Finneas. Happier Than Ever was nearly complete, but she wasn’t yet ready to show off her new blond look. So she hid it beneath a green-and-black wig. “It was weird,” she reflects. “I was playing this former Billie Eilish with green hair, singing a song from a year and a half prior, while I have 16 new songs that I haven’t put out yet. The fans didn’t really even know that it was a goodbye to an era. That’s kind of heartbreaking but endearing at the same time.”

i think it's great, probably better than her last album. also idk why we should be so concerned abt the commercial prospects of this record. should we boomers-thru-millennials feel personally slighted if the gen z'ers aren't as enthusiastic about her now that they know we like her too?

i think many of the songs that were previewed individually as singles would have been more impactful if first heard within the context of the album. i don't understand if the label were sincerely hoping that one of them would become, like, a 'hit song' (b/c honestly almost none of them *sounded like* one) or if they just thought releasing them like that would somehow be good for hyping the project

i think they were probably just throwing stuff out there to try to hype it, because there wasn't much in the way of obvious hits ("therefore i am" is the most obvious & also most successful from this cycle) but that hadn't really stopped her having chart success before either. there's not a "bad guy" on this album but it's for the better (but "bad guy" is still kinda annoying to me). it all sounds better in the context of the album though

I also think the singles gave a taste of what the album would feel/sound like, so they sort of prepped the listener for the new aesthetic direction (which feels like a real Captain Obvious observation once I type it out). They got me interested and anticipating the release, anyway, so it worked on this aging X'er.

The title track just popped up on my release radar playlist and WHOA this is great

Glancing at that Stereogum review, hard to believe that Tom B. listened to the same album... different strokes, I guess.

Happier Than Ever is mostly only an interesting album because it’s a Billie Eilish album and because Billie Eilish is interesting.

No, it's because the songs, performances, and production are very good.

The tempos are slow. The arrangements are restrained. The songs are torchy and soft and nervous. Eilish sings so quietly, and Finneas mics her so closely, that you can hear the spit-bubbles popping in her mouth. Happier Than Ever is full of acoustic guitars and delicately deployed synths and hushed, murmuring beats.

these things are not inherently boring (in fact they are all good & interesting here), any more than a "dentist-drill sound" on the previous album is inherently exciting

It’s just more subtle and inviting in an immediate way than the first album.

The debut was something I heard for the first time and was immediately compelled and electrified; this new record I heard and thought “this is gonna be a grower.”

But different strokes.

In a *less* immediate way, I meant.

these things are not inherently boring (in fact they are all good & interesting here), any more than a "dentist-drill sound" on the previous album is inherently exciting

― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp),

I don't think he finds these elements boring, not when he's reviewed plenty of hip-hop albums with a similar ethos.

I've warmed to this album considerably.

i mean the sentence before that excerpt is "I take no pleasure in reporting that Happier Than Ever is a boring record."

I read so few critical evaluations of top-shelf artists these days that the declarative confidence of this sentence was a tonic, though.

i take no pleasure in reporting that happier than ever is a really good record

Finneas mics her so closely, that you can hear the spit-bubbles popping in her mouth.

gross!!

(i haven't listened to this)

wants to capture that ASMR audience

her audience loved that part where she pops out her retainer so much that she turned it into an entire concept album

I haven’t heard that particular sound (and I’ve listened on headphones), but Mr. B may have golden ears.

breihan piece reads like he’s recounting someone else describing the album to him, exaggerating the surface details

i hope low covers the title track

this is great, better than her debut

There's an approach here that is very similar on the surface to Lana Del Rey in terms of how both use a very similar flat-affect voice across all of their material but Eilish refracts through the different prisms set up by her various arrangements whereas Del Rey's music aggregates into an indistinguishable monolithic smear of grossness to me. Also, Eilish is better at connecting different colors/tones in her voice together than Del Rey; I have never gotten the "multiple homunculi fighting their way up her esophagus" vibe from Eilish that I regularly get from Del Rey.

I get the “controversial opinion” that this is the sort of album that gets interest solely for the huge impact the previous one had. Yeah, this album wouldn’t have had half the impact of the debut if they switch places, but I mean… duh? I love artists using the eye of the hurricane to rethink their careers and where they want to move forward and this clearly an album that comes after a hugely successful one and not the other way around. This is a burned out album of sorts.

Of sorts! "Things I once enjoyed/Just keep me employed now," in the very first track. Yeah, it's definitely an album that only exists in the afterburn of the first one. What I like about it lyrically is that there's a lot of confidence underlying the vulnerability, there's more well-earned impatience with assholes than self-pity.

the album is a little long but I'm not sure where I would trim it, and I much prefer it to the first one - her on-record identity seems much more fleshed-out, this one feels like listening to a real person instead of an outline of a personality. There's a few moments where some of production choices irriate me - the drums, particularly the hi-hats, seem to be a bit cheap and too loudly mixed.

I could see maybe losing tracks 8 and 9, if you wanted to trim it down... though those both feel pretty essential to the "project."

("Halley's Comet" is pretty, but the melody is distractingly reminiscent of "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You")

(...which is a lyrically apt reference, of course)