hmm how did "everything I wanted" not make the cut for the album
― bon ivermectin (Murgatroid), Saturday, 31 July 2021 15:52 (two years ago) link
It’s pretty old and was on the reissue of the last album
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Saturday, 31 July 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
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.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Saturday, 31 July 2021 23:45 (two years ago) link
except for the bridge in "overheated" where she gets so disparaging about plastic surgeryThe lyrics on the album are strong throughout, but I agree this one part feels weirdly off.
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Sunday, 1 August 2021 05:54 (two years ago) link
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
― ufo, Sunday, 1 August 2021 06:01 (two years ago) link
yeah exactly
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Sunday, 1 August 2021 06:02 (two years ago) link
this album reminds me a lot of yeezus & like... late 90s downtempo pop stuff
― ufo, Sunday, 1 August 2021 11:39 (two years ago) link
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/
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 1 August 2021 11:47 (two years ago) link
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
― ufo, Sunday, 1 August 2021 11:56 (two years ago) link
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.”
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Monday, 2 August 2021 03:52 (two years ago) link
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
― dyl, Monday, 2 August 2021 03:54 (two years ago) link
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
― ufo, Monday, 2 August 2021 04:10 (two years ago) link
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.
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Monday, 2 August 2021 04:22 (two years ago) link
The title track just popped up on my release radar playlist and WHOA this is great
― Karl Havoc (DJP), Monday, 2 August 2021 19:59 (two years ago) link
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.
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Monday, 2 August 2021 20:25 (two years ago) link
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
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Monday, 2 August 2021 20:29 (two years ago) link
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.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 2 August 2021 20:58 (two years ago) link
In a *less* immediate way, I meant.
― 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.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 2 August 2021 21:05 (two years ago) link
i mean the sentence before that excerpt is "I take no pleasure in reporting that Happier Than Ever is a boring record."
― ufo, Monday, 2 August 2021 21:07 (two years ago) link
I read so few critical evaluations of top-shelf artists these days that the declarative confidence of this sentence was a tonic, though.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 2 August 2021 21:10 (two years ago) link
i take no pleasure in reporting that happier than ever is a really good record
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, 3 August 2021 15:16 (two years ago) link
Finneas mics her so closely, that you can hear the spit-bubbles popping in her mouth.
gross!!
― aegis philbin (crüt), Tuesday, 3 August 2021 15:38 (two years ago) link
(i haven't listened to this)
wants to capture that ASMR audience
― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 3 August 2021 15:39 (two years ago) link
her audience loved that part where she pops out her retainer so much that she turned it into an entire concept album
― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Tuesday, 3 August 2021 15:48 (two years ago) link
I haven’t heard that particular sound (and I’ve listened on headphones), but Mr. B may have golden ears.
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Tuesday, 3 August 2021 15:51 (two years ago) link
breihan piece reads like he’s recounting someone else describing the album to him, exaggerating the surface details
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, 3 August 2021 15:55 (two years ago) link
i hope low covers the title track
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, 3 August 2021 16:00 (two years ago) link
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.
― Karl Havoc (DJP), Tuesday, 3 August 2021 16:20 (two years ago) link
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.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, 4 August 2021 02:24 (two years ago) link
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.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 4 August 2021 05:55 (two years ago) link
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.
― boxedjoy, Wednesday, 4 August 2021 08:47 (two years ago) link
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")
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Wednesday, 4 August 2021 22:52 (two years ago) link
(...which is a lyrically apt reference, of course)
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Wednesday, 4 August 2021 22:56 (two years ago) link
haha
I've played this album more often than the debut.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 4 August 2021 23:23 (two years ago) link
love this one so far
her first album was lyrically very much about being a teen who had a lot of online fame and hype but, really, still the experiences that implies
now it’s.. oh no, billie’s still had a limited world because you can’t just go out and do things as a famous teen, but you’re still a young person who loses track of friends and has shitty relationships, but you can’t step outside your house without getting hassled
or as I put it briefly, “ms. eilish has had more life experiences and didn’t like them very much”
― mh, Thursday, 5 August 2021 21:10 (two years ago) link
her and lay dee goo gaw can go away now!
― xzanfar, Thursday, 5 August 2021 22:37 (two years ago) link
^"that shit's embarrassing"
― Malibu Cheer Chants Forensics (morrisp), Thursday, 5 August 2021 23:20 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt-BMjO232I
title track live
― ufo, Tuesday, 10 August 2021 07:27 (two years ago) link
I think the first song on this record is my favorite one.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 10 August 2021 09:15 (two years ago) link
It’s this wonderfully calibrated simmer/seethe, with an amazing range of emotions contained therein.
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 10 August 2021 09:21 (two years ago) link
A showtune that’s also a hymn, a confessional booth session - if I were a director shooting a video I’d frame it like something from “The Real World,” which is why I’m not a music video director, of course
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 10 August 2021 09:37 (two years ago) link
The production on “Lost Cause” is so sick. Those tinny, distant guitar strums… It’s like a deep, lost trip-hop track.
― Shallot Shortage 2021 (morrisp), Sunday, 22 August 2021 01:13 (two years ago) link
"GOLDWING" on my annual mixtape, it's an earworm
― assert (matttkkkk), Saturday, 18 December 2021 05:07 (two years ago) link
Oh, she just turned 20. She has really good influences but they are old ! (Even though the sound is very 90s) I thought of the fucking Beatles on the first track.On first listen, Oxytocin, Goldwing, Your Power (I feel like I've heard that vocal line before though) and Therefore I Am stand out for me.I wish she rebalanced her singing even more in favour of clean singing and giving her voice more space rather than keep this focus on every trembling syllable, I get that it's part of her identity as a singer but I find it a bit gimmicky and grating over a whole album and she doesn't really need it anymore to demarcate herself. The rest of her vocal arsenal is much more powerful.
― Nabozo, Wednesday, 22 December 2021 16:08 (two years ago) link
I was kinda surprised at how naturally charismatic and game she was on SNL. I mean yeah pop-star-is-good-on-camera shocker, but I guess it's been a minute since I've seen her (outside of a performance) and was expecting the kind of awkward, slightly stoned, slightly gloomy, alt teen presence she had earlier on.
Anyway, she rules. Most likable popstar.
― circa1916, Wednesday, 22 December 2021 18:07 (two years ago) link
I watched bits of the SNL stuff, and I agree she was unexpectedly charismatic and low-key "charming" on camera. Kind of a young Juliette Lewis vibe (or something). I find many of today's pop stars to be fairly "likeable," FWIW.
― Texas Medicine v. Railroad Gin (morrisp), Wednesday, 22 December 2021 20:15 (two years ago) link
I think the use of social media really helps modern popstars to not be live in a bubble all of the time. Back then the connection was almost strictly via mainstream media doing all the discourse and they couldn’t really connect directly with any of their fans or have much to say.
Now they can be silent observers on what fans are liking or not liking about anything they do and correct course immediately if they think it’s a fair criticism. It’s also a much comfortable option for pop artists with a bit of an introverted side to them like Billie Eilish.
Many people think of social media as a very toxic environment but tbh I think what we had before was way worse.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 24 December 2021 02:54 (two years ago) link
the doco "The World's a Little Blurry" is about twice as long as it should be, but is insightful and unfussed, and Billie's commitment to her art and her fans is quite remarkable. Seems to have maintained her authentic self despite the six-orders-of-magnitude growth of her fanbase and reach. Well worth a watch.
― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 24 December 2021 05:57 (two years ago) link